Simply Divine
by Collylocks
Summary: Angelina Divine dislikes complexity, including relationships. But things have changed since she first came to Hogwarts: a mysterious Ravenclaw brings to light a new side of her personality, and Remus intrigues her more and more. And now, quite simply, she might be ready to chuck simplicity out of the window of the girls' 7th year dormitory.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Trainrides Really are the Most Embarrassing Things in the World...**

Angelina flinched. Lily's voice carried even when she wasn't angry, but Potter's presence just really made her voice skyrocket another 30 decibels. Sighing, she turned and kept walking down the long aisle of the train, stifling a grin after noticing a small brunette, most likely a first year, blinking with her mouth slightly agape at the obscenities spewing forth from James Potter's mouth. Honestly, why couldn't he just give up? She thought. Lily had been turning him down consistently since he began liking her and asking her out to Hogsmeade, to the Astronomy Tower, to the Lake, to, well, quite simply, any place he could consider a date, and he still thought Lily was as fickle as some of those wide-eyed first years. _James is a Gryffindor, obviously. Since he's been sharing a common room with all of us for a full six years, but isn't stupid, unwavering determination more of a loyalty than a bravery? He may as well be a jolly little Hufflepuff!_ Angelina started giggling at her observation, closing her eyes and snorting as she walked into someone.

"Oh, hi there, Remus," she giggled quietly, blushing furiously at her clumsiness and dusting away nonexistent dust from Remus's sweater, and blinked up at his strongly featured face while somewhat geekily pushing her glasses back up her nose by the frame.

"Hey, Angelina. Alright?" His grin was slight, reserved. Angelina always knew she liked him best for a reason. None of that ridiculous toothy grin stuff Pettigrew always pulled off, or a dangerous smirk like Sirius. Not even a charming "James Potter smile". A "Remus Lupin grin". Lovely.

"Quite, just laughing at a silly joke I made." Her blush started fading and her confidence was coming back, even with his large hands on her shoulders. Angelina smiled up at him, squinting at his face and looking at his eyelashes, surrounding his large, warm eyes. It was like a fireplace, really. She could see the flames now!

Remus stared at her, slightly confused, but with a growing grin. "And who were you making the joke to? Your shadow?"

_Wuh oh. There's the blush again, full force._

"Well…err…Don't you have to be to the Prefect's cabin, Remus? Lots of really important prefect-y things you need to do, I'll bet! See you!" _Run, run, run! Get away!_

Angelina sighed, pouting and thinking. _Already managing to embarrass myself in front of the nicest marauder and it's not even noon! At least I didn't trip when I was making my escape, she added as an after thought. His laugh almost made my face so heated I could've melted the floor in front of my face, and then BAM! I would've been down for the count._ Picturing the scene, she started giggling again, and, remembering the ramifications of laughing to herself moments ago, whipped open the door to an empty compartment and walked in, waiting for Lily and possibly the twins.

Lily was always the leader, probably always would be. A true Gryffindor, leading their little pack of friends through the atrocities that are History of Magic, adolescence, boys, make-up, and the Marauders. Nothing tested Lily's bravery like the Marauders. Her hair always looked like liquid fire when she tossed it about, yelling and berating them for something. Yelling at James because of his arrogance and glowering at Sirius from afar because of his inability to take anything but girls seriously, despite the homophony. Scolding Remus for letting the other Marauders copy his school work, and somewhat condescendingly telling Peter he should really try and find himself before he found out everything from the boys. Lily had her head in the sky, full of dreams and aspirations, but her feet firmly planted on the ground. Lily was the rock to maintain the sometimes waxing and waning friendship between the twins and Angelina.

Elizabeth and Emily Marquis were a bit grating to Angelina, at times. It wasn't exactly jealousy, just a bit of confusion. Elizabeth, older by a few minutes and quite proud of it, was petite and thin, and she preferred her hair the natural sandy blonde color she had been born with. Emily had discovered hair dye in 4th year and never looked back; some people had a hard time remembering her without her short raven colored locks. Emily, too, was rather short, but was more on the pudgy side. She had curves, and generally seemed comfortable with her appearance, until her sister started slinking about with boys. In any case, the two were as opposite as night and day, despite the cliché, but managed to keep their twin connection in full flow all the time, as well as stay the best of friends. Elizabeth liked History of Magic and Potions, while Emily liked Transfiguration and Defense Against the Dark Arts (Thrown in with Lily's Charms prowess and Angelina's strange green thumb and memory for astronomical points in the sky, they had magnificent grades for the most part, able to tutor each other in their favorite subjects.). Elizabeth liked snogging boys, and Emily liked holding their hands and hugging them. Elizabeth liked to daydream about life and plan the future; Emily liked to be spontaneous and carefree. A bit odd how well they accepted each other and relied on each other, and Angelina always struggled to find anything particularly parallel in their personalities other than their fashion sense. They both liked polka dots and stripes, large bracelets and necklaces, and cute heels in bright colors that few people managed to pull off in day to day Hogwarts-wear. Elizabeth and Emily were girls, and that usually ended up bothering Angelina, because girls were fickle, flighty, and a torrent of emotions.

Angelina enjoyed reading and warmth. Books were pleasurable to Angelina at any time and in any place, and the other girls swore she kept her entire library pocket-sized just in case she ever got bored. She slept in slippers, enjoyed the chairs closest to the fire in the common room, and wore the same thick, red scarf from November until March. She had a tendency for losing things, and kept all her important items in the bedside table in their dorm. Her hair was a common shade of brown, and she had kept it long all six years of their schooling, until she somewhat scared herself with a strong urge for change and chopped off a good two feet this past summer. Angelina decided she liked the haircut, and the collarbone length went well with her reading glasses, which she really just wore all the time because of her random desires for literature. But more than anything else, Angelina was passionate about music. Having grown up playing violin and piano, she often felt more at ease with the instruments than other people. Music was the only thing she didn't like to be simple. She lived for the intricacies of the Baroque Era, while at the same time swooning over those fearless Romantic composers. Symphonies could make her cry, and there were a few operas which made her feel strong enough to challenge the Fat Lady to an opera-off, singing their highest notes with as much vibrato as possible until a glass broke (neither ever succeeded). And she could never really adapt to the popular wizarding bands; they just never seemed good enough for her. Yes, simplicity was grand in everything but music.

Still, the four girls got along well enough, and fancied themselves a happy little family, but nothing so disgusting as the Marauders. _Oh no, not them. Really_, Angelina thought, _the __**Marauder**__s? It's like they're planning to go out onto the lake and pillage someone other than the giant squid!_

And then, she was giggling again.

"Can I poke her?"

"Are you serious?"

"Is there ever any doubt?"

"Bad joke, Sirius."

Sirius "hmph"ed and Angelina curled up a little tighter, wishing she had learned to become a porcupine animagus just in case Sirius decided to poke her awake.

"Leave her alo-"

And then she felt it. A finger, in her ear. A wet finger in her ear. Sirius Black was going down.

"YOU JERK! ALL I WANTED WAS A LITTLE PEACE AND QUIET AND YOU JUST HAD TO GO AND STICK YOUR FINGER IN MY EAR? YOU ARE POSSIBLY THE MOST OBNOXIOUS, IMMATURE JERK I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE OF MEETING! I HOPE SOMEONE STICKS HER WET FINGER IN YOUR EAR JUST AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO HAVE THE MOST PLEASING THING EVER HAPPEN TO YOU, JUST SO YOU CAN BE DEPRAVED!" Angelina started panting, her face going redder when she had more time to think over what she just said.

Sirius was blinking at her, raising an eyebrow, and trying not to laugh.

"Well, uh, you knoooooow, Angiecakes, the most pleasing thing ever might just invol-"

"Sirius, stop." Angelina really couldn't ever find anything wrong with Remus. What a hero, saving her from whatever disgusting thing Black was going to say! "Angelina, are you okay?" _Not a hero, a knight! _Angelina elaborated to herself. _One of those ones in shining armor…_

She snapped out of it when the mental image of Remus riding away into on a grand white steed took a turn for the worse and he was suddenly waving his hand in front of her face, with his eyes bugged out, and his gallant white steed became Sirius.

"…Oh." Angelina blinked at them both, letting her eyes refocus, first on Remus looking at her concernedly, bent down to be eye level with her, then on Sirius, looking down at her with that ridiculous smirk on his lovely face. How embarrassing. _What did I even say? It must have been ridiculous… _She considered. _Train rides must be meant to be disasters, because there really is not another explanation._ "I'm quite alright, thanks. I just…well, I was sleepy, you know… And Sirius, he just had to come ruin it. And…and, well, I'm really not the best at insulting people… I don't even remember what I said!"

Remus's grin reappeared, and Sirius leaned in close, putting his nice, manly lips near her ear. "Well, you know, Angiebaby, if you wanted to stick your finger in my ear, I certainly would encourage it."

Wham!

There it went. That mental restraint over the physical body? It snapped.

"LENA!"

Angelina looked towards the compartment door. There stood Lily Evans, best friend, with James Potter, best friend's arch nemesis. Her face was pale, her jaw dropped. James just looked from Angelina's raised fist to Sirius' body on the floor of the compartment, blinking several times before grabbing onto the side of the door to keep from falling over laughing. Full out laughing at his best friend sprawled on the floor. Angelina could've sworn she heard some snickering from the corner, and when she looked, there was jolly little Peter Pettigrew. _Didn't even notice him over Black being a total idiot... _She thought.

"Yes, Lily?"

"Well, I…You can't do stuff like that, Lena! I'm Head Girl!" Lily sounded extremely distressed, and Angelina resisted the mighty desire to roll her eyes.

"Let's go, Lily. We'll find a new compartment. Seen Emily and Elizabeth?"

Angelina took a few steps towards Lily, hooked her arm over hers, and paraded down the train to look for the twins, trying to fight off the extreme urge to blush when she heard Remus explode into laughter with James and Peter at Sirius Black, laid out on the compartment floor.

Elizabeth and Emily dragged Lily and Angelina into a compartment towards the rear of the train. Of course, Angelina only realized that was the case after a pair of hands had roughly grabbed her arms and covered her mouth, she had tripped over a pair of nicely arched feet in bronze heels, she had landed face up on the floor of the compartment, covered by a body vaguely familiar, she had stood up laughing, and peeked out the compartment to see where she was after recognizing the twins. And still, she couldn't quite get the nagging thought from her head that train rides to Hogwarts were meant to be embarrassing…

"So." Emily said, standing with her hands on her hips and blinking down at her sister, still on the floor from her tangle with Angelina.

"Hi, Em. Liz." Lily beamed at them, completely unruffled. The twins always preferred their nick names; they seemed to find the assonance of Elizabeth and Emily to be kind of infuriating after a while of being grouped together as a whole phrase: "Elizabeth and Emily".

Elizabeth grinned from the floor. "Summer treated you well, Lily? Lena?" Seeing their shrugs and smiles, Liz's grin grew. "We went to the Bahamas. Have you ever been? No? Shame. Lots of cute boys." Emily giggled in agreement and stood next to her sister. They looked strange. Their freckles had disappeared underneath the layer of bronze skin they had captured in the tropics. Elizabeth really did look like one of American beach girls, but the tan just looked a bit awkward with Emily's dark hair.

"I stayed around the house. Did homework. Avoided cute boys." It was common knowledge that Angelina lived very near the Potters, and ignored the fact as much as possible. It wasn't that she hated them, she just…tolerated them. Remus was all well and good, but Peter was a bit too quiet, James and Sirius a bit too loud and arrogant. Angelina smiled slightly, curling up on a seat with Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. _Oh, Edmond…you're better than ANY marauder…_She was tuning them out for the rest of the ride, while they giggled about the cute, tan American boys in the Bahamas. Angelina was totally lost in the tangling webs around the characters of her novel when she felt the cushion sink in beside her and she noticed the voices arguing and getting louder with each word.

Remus smiled at her and rolled his eyes at the rest of the people in the compartment: Lily pushing her finger into James' chest as he grinned at her, Em and Liz staring at the particularly shiny Head Boy badge gracing James' robes; Sirius and Peter smirking and trying to smirk and failing, respectively, at the girls, proud of their leader. Angelina grinned at Remus and went back to reading her book, oblivious to his leaning close and peering over her shoulder, reading the pages.

After a while, a whistle sounded and everyone scrambled, frantic to find their robes before they arrived at Hogwarts in a good ten minutes. Remus looked confused and blinked as suddenly he was in the compartment, alone with a softly smiling Angelina. He blinked at her face a few times, and couldn't quite decide if he was stunned by the way her lips were a vibrant shade of pink, or the speed with which the rest of his train ride had passed.

Catching her brown eyes, he grinned. "I never realized how much faster that ride went when you just ignored everyone's whining and arguing."

Angelina stifled a giggle and squinted her eyes at him. "Well, Master Lupin, how do you think I've survived these past six years?"

Remus blinked before he could laugh at her joke, and then she was out the compartment, heading to change and part from the train, giggling all the while.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: ...Except for Feasts, Maybe.**

It was always kind of fun to watch the sorting, but now it just made Angelina feel awkward. She watched the new kids standing in a jumble, some shaking, and some smiling, some forgetting to blink as they stared at the ceiling of the hall, and some looking positively stuck between nauseated and jubilant. It was just hard to remember herself as a dinky little first year. She was certainly never that tiny or that feeble-looking, was she? Angelina smiled ruefully and clapped along as several of the students became the next generation of Gryffindors, hoping they were braver than they looked. But then, Angelina couldn't remember being particularly brave, either. When she liked a boy, she kept it quiet. She always did her homework in fear of retribution and in fear of making the decision to tell the truth to the professor and to see that look of disappointment, or to try her hand at weaving a tale of great proportions to avoid it and to see the look of concern. Angelina just didn't seem to fit into Gryffindor, but couldn't fathom where else she would have been sorted.

She had never been particularly brainy, so Ravenclaw would not have done. Hufflepuff students were a bit too boring for Angelina to get along with them; she liked simplicity, sure, but there had to be a little bit of excitement to keep her attention. Certainly not Slytherin, for she was never cunning or calculating. Gryffindor must have been the Sorting Hat's last stitch effort to place her somewhere instead of sending her back home with a letter to her parents saying she just was too irregular. Lily was brilliant and brave, a natural leader, unifying people. Liz and Em were always looking for adventure and the next big thing. The Marauders walked right past bravery and into arrogance. Where could Angelina go?

"Angie? Hello? You can, er, you can eat now, yeah?"

Angelina blinked at the hand in front of her face, following the arm up to a shoulder, neck, and finally, James Potter's head.

"Thanks," she whispered, feeling her face flush again.

"No problem!" he replied, "I'll be sure to wake you up from dreamland."

"Yeah! You were totally zoning out there, babe. Looking pretty frazzled too, like someone had just caught you snogging Peter."

Angelina's eyes flicked over to Peter looking horribly embarrassed and sitting next to Sirius, whose smirk made Angelina aware of the fact that she should probably try to control the apparent repugnance her blushing face displayed._ I thought feasts were the least of my worries…_

She scooped some corn onto her plate, and, in an attempt to calm down, began stabbing and popping each separate kernel into her mouth. The Marauders continued clowning around, earning some disapproving glares from Lily, sitting on Angelina's left.

"And then," Sirius was leaning towards James and Remus, who were sitting across from Angelina and now completely ignoring Peter, finishing off his joke, "the witch screamed, 'MERLIN! I HAD NO IDEA YOU MEANT _THAT_ SPECIAL WAND WHEN YOU ASKED IF I CARED FOR A GANDER!'" Lily rolled her eyes, the twins giggled, and the marauders laughed hysterically. Angelina, on the other hand, choked on a kernel of corn.

"Angie?"

"Lena?"

"ANGELINA!"

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, LILY! SAVE HER!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, 'SAVE HER', POTTER?"

"SHE'S - SHE'S CHOKING ON SOMETHING!"

"I KNOW SHE'S CHOKING, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!"

"Who's choking?" Angelina would have laughed at Peter's inability to follow.

If she weren't struggling to breathe, of course.

While everyone panicked, Angelina felt a force pushing up through her throat. It was constricting, and she lost even more air. Her vision was going blurry and dark, but she was aware of the vague forms of her friends and the marauders jumping around, trying to smack her on the back, waving their arms about, and just plain panicking. The constriction became worse, but suddenly, Angelina's jaw dropped, and the little piece of corn floated out of her mouth and rose before her eyes, which she crossed in confusion and exhaustion before falling in a heap on the floor as Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth screamed and the Marauders let out shouts of surprise.

Angelina walked into the common room after waking up in the Hospital Wing. She feared having to go back down once she saw two people cuddled up in the corner by the fire, doing a fair bit of cooing and snogging. Lily and James. _Ew_. She blinked a few times and opened her mouth to ask what in the Merlin's special wand had happened while she was resting from the atrocity at the feast when Sirius came downstairs, hand in hand with Remus. _Oh boy_, Angelina thought, her jaw dropping and her eyes popping wide open. Sirius beamed at her while Remus grinned shyly.

"Angiebaby! You were out the whole year!" Sirius and Remus were still walking towards her, hands cupped together, and they noticed her staring. "Yeah, sorry, you missed a few things…but hey! Peter will be ecstatic! PETER! GET DOWN HERE! ANGIE'S AWAKE!"

She didn't want to find out why Peter was going to be ecstatic. She really, really didn't want to find out. Angelina started turning around to run to Dumbledore and get a full explanation of what day it was when she felt hands around her arm. Her hair whipped Peter in the side of the face, but he couldn't stop grinning in that silly manner.

"Hi…hi, Pete."

"Oh, hello…"

"Well, Angelina, you see…We're all graduating next week! Lily and James are getting married. Sirius and I are getting an apartment. The twins dropped out due to some, uh, pregnancy issues. Peter, well, Peter was feeling pretty down about failing and having to repeat Seventh year, but you never woke up! And now that you've missed the whole school year, you'll have to repeat, and you and Peter can finally get together! Isn't that wonde-!"

Angelina's scream cut Remus mid-exclamation, and her eyes flew open.

"NOOOoooo?" she stopped, confused when she saw everyone crowded around her. Remus' eyes were wide open, Lily was pressing her hand to Angelina's forehead, checking for a fever. The twins were clinging to James and Sirius, and Peter stood on his toes, trying to peek over, his face pale and sweating. "…But..I…What?"

"Lena! You're awake!"

"Yes, Lily, thank you. What exactly is going on?"

"OH NO!" Sirius' voice broke through, loudly. "SHE MUST HAVE AMNESIA!"

"She remembered Lily's name, you dolt." Remus smirked at Sirius and Angelina found it highly uncharacteristic. What if she was dreaming again and the dream friends were really trying to convince her it wasn't a dream and her mind was really going crazy?!

Dumbledore walked in with Madam Pomfrey, smiling gently.

"It's not a dream, Miss Divine." Okay. It wasn't a dream, then. "I'm glad you're awake and feeling better, but do take care in eating at feasts in the future. You may want to brush up on your table manners, however." He walked out jauntily, that twinkle in his eyes.

_Stupid twinkle…_

The Marauders, Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth watched Dumbledore leave the Hospital Wing and grinned at Angelina's scowling face. Emily grinned and launched into a retelling of events.

"Well, we all kind of noticed you choking, yeah? I guess we were too busy arguing and panicking that none of us really knew how to help you. And then, before we knew it, your face was turning purple-"

"Really not an attractive shade, darling," Elizabeth interrupted.

"…Indeed. Well, back to the story, yeah? So, we're all just yelling and going crazy, and before we know it, there's kernel of corn floating out of your mouth, and good old Dumbles is behind us, looking calm as a kitten! Used his magic to pull that darn kernel right out of your breathing tube, yeah? Then, you fainted, and he patted myself and Peter on the back, telling everyone to get you to the Hospital Wing for a pepper-up potion upon your return to consciousness." Emily beamed as she finished, looking around at the others.

"He also flicked his wand a bit when we were leaving, and I couldn't help but notice the disappearance of corn from all the House tables…" Remus grinned at her, and Angelina couldn't help but smile back.

Too bad Madame Pomfrey came bustling right over with a cup full of pepper-up. She shooed everyone out, and thinking Angelina would be out in just a moment, didn't even put up a struggle. Angelina started panicking. _They don't know her well enough! They think she's letting me go! _

Madame Pomfrey handed her a different potion. "This is a sleeping draught. You need to really sleep this time, not have some horrible nightmare waking you prematurely and leaving you in a tizzy. You can have the pepper-up potion when you wake. Classes start tomorrow. You'll be up by seven, for breakfast and your time-tables."

Angelina didn't even protest. Dreamless sleep sounded pretty lovely at the moment, especially as her heart was pounding for some reason, and she really did not want to see Remus and Sirius holding hands, and Peter falling all over her.

_Damn. I'll never look at Remus and Sirius the same way again! _Angelina let out a small noise of frustration, before drifting into slumber. _Damn you, welcome back feasts, damn you! And I thought the train ride was embarrassing... _


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Of Dinosaurs and Greasy-haired Gits**

Waking up in the Hospital Wing was always kind of disconcerting, like being lost and floating in the clouds - until one noticed the vials of potions and large, bound books on the bookshelves in the room, of course. Or until someone heard the moaning of another person in the next bed over with a giant sunflower for a face, or with a third ear instead of a chin, or a leg coming out of an abdomen. That Madame Pomfrey sure did like challenges…

Angelina smiled slightly as her eyes fluttered open. Dreamless sleep was so much more calming than sleep full of dreams. Most of her dreams were ridiculous anyway, much too involved, creative, and impossible._ Really, Sirius would __**never **__be gay_. Angelina thought. _My subconscious must be really dumb. At least there weren't any dinosaurs involved…_

It had been common knowledge to every current 7th year that Angelina Divine's subconscious had some fixation with dinosaurs. She ended up having dreams about dinosaurs quite often. Sometimes they were cartoon Tyrannosaurus Rexes; sometimes they were Velociraptors gauging chasing her through the prehistoric jungles. Sometimes the Pterodactyls picked her up and dropped her into the mouth of a large, hungry Brachiosaurus that wasn't aware of its herbivoreness. Sometimes a nice family of cartoon Stegosaurs had a row with a family of cranky Triceratopses and Angelina would have to mediate. Sometimes she would go swimming with a Plesiosaur who had a full head of curly green hair…

In any case, Sirius had once startled Angelina awake when she had fallen asleep in the common room. She had screamed about Harold being in danger, an exclamation which certainly captured Sirius' interest. Despite his incessant pestering for a week straight, Angelina would always blush and walk away when he asked if Harold was a lover, or an old friend, or a cousin, or a brother she had committed some rude act with. Sirius isn't one for allowing others to withhold information, so he stooped almost as low as Marauderly possible: he veritaserumed Angelina. He couldn't take the mystery so he slipped some veritaserum into a mug of hot cocoa during one of their Marauder and Lily and Company study and hang out sessions in the middle of January during their 5th year, almost 3 months after she had screamed about her Harold. Sirius almost –_ almost_ – wished he hadn't done it. Much to everyone's amusement (and Angelina's fury), Harold turned out to be a friendly cartoon T-Rex who stomped all around her hometown of Telford. Angelina had run away to the small café to hide amongst the strong smelling coffee beans so that he wouldn't smell the scent of her human skin. She was about to leave when Harold ripped off the roof of the café and grinned at her, sitting down at a little table and crossing his legs. She placed a bagel on each of his claws and he popped them into his mouth one by one as they made small talk together. And then, under the power of the veritaserum, Angelina confessed to the other 7 Gryffindors Sirius' favorite part: she had fallen in love with Harold American accent from the moment he asked her to sit and have tea with him.

When Sirius had regained his breath and gotten little sleep to concoct some wicked ideas, he stooped to the lowest, dirtiest level he could have stooped. He drew a picture of Angelina staring up at a behemoth yellow, purple, and pink dinosaur sitting at a small coffee table with his massive legs crossed and wearing a tie, and charmed it so her eyes were replaced by pulsing hearts and slight drool came out of her mouth. For the first quarter of an hour, he just charmed it to follow Angelina around while she was in the Gryffindor common room. When he tired of seeing her face turn bright red every second she caught a good glimpse of the parchment, he made copies (only after running down to see Professor Flitwick for a quick lesson about the snap of the wrist, flick of the wand duplication charm) and then charmed the hundreds of copies to the walls, floors, stairwells, ceilings, and bathroom stall doors of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Fifth year wasn't Angelina's favorite year, to say the least.

Angelina sat up in bed and dropped her legs over the side, letting her feet hit the cold floor. She shivered. Every since she had come to Hogwarts, she had worn little slippers to bed; it helped take away the shock of getting up and walking around the dormitory with feet close to being smelly ice cubes. Angelina shuddered. _Not that my feet smell._

"I wash them every day!" Angelina smiled and looked down at her feet, wiggling her toes.

She threw on her uniform which just so happened to be at the foot of her bed when she woke up. Yawning, she walked over to the small bathroom attached to the large room and brushed her teeth and washed her face, rubbing at her eyes when she finished. Waking up really was not fun. It always left Angelina feeling dissatisfied with something. Sleep was a very comfy blanket. Grabbing the school bag which also mysteriously appeared at the foot of her bed, Angelina slung it over her shoulder and drowsily walked to the Great Hall.

Apparently, she was drowsy enough to not notice Snape walking towards with a sneer on his face until his large feet blocked her path directly. Angelina's eyes started at his feet, traveled up his legs, shot quickly up to his chest, and then scanned his sallow face lazily.

"Yes, Snape?" He just stared at her when she spoke. "Do you need something?"

"No need to be so snappy, Divine." His sneer became even more pronounced, if physically possible. Angelina started tapping her foot on the stone floor.

"I'm hungry, dear Severus. I'd really enjoy some warm waffles, extraordinary eggs, perfect pumpkin juice…" Angelina smiled at him as she trailed off. She was fond of alliterations.

Snape raised his eyebrow, and grasped his hands together, his face slackening and turning a slightly green tinge. "I need your help."

Angelina blinked.

Angelina blinked again.

Angelina blinked a third time.

Severus Snape wanted help from a mudblood Gryffindor? She was about to snort and break into raucous laughter when she saw the pleading look in his dark eyes. _Oh, shit._ _He's serious._ The other part of her brain found this the opportune moment to mock the Marauders' favorite joke. _He's not Sirius! Sirius is Sirius! _Former part of Angelina's brain found this the opportune moment to find the dumb joke funny for the first time in her life, and let go of the control it was yielding over her laughter.

The Great Hall was kind of empty, and Angelina was rather disappointed. Of course, she did get a plate full of warm waffles and extraordinary eggs and proceeded to wash them down with her perfect pumpkin juice, but eating breakfast wasn't fun without anyone to talk to or laugh at. Though, she certainly had gotten her fill of laughter for the day. She had stood there and laughed right in Snape's face for at least five minutes. He had just stared at her, looking more and more dejected until he stalked off. Angelina still felt guilty, but everything that had occurred in the past 24 hours was just too much: making a total arse out of herself on the train, making a total arse out of herself at the feast, having that ridiculous dream about Sirius and Remus and James and Lily getting together while the twins dropped out due to pregnancy and Peter wanted to date her while he retook 7th year, and Severus Snape wanted her help? Tipped over the barrel of Ridiculous Things That Happen To Angelina Divine In Her Seventh Year and let her laughter spill all over his sulking face and the Hogwarts corridor. Angelina had just stood there laughing for several minutes, grabbing at her abdomen in an attempt to stop, the tears streaming from her eyes as she collapsed in a heap on the floor. When some first years had come down the stairwell nearby and gaped at her like she was some funny looking angler fish from the depths of the ocean, Angelina had stood up shakily and walked to breakfast, wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Hello," Remus was smiling at her sweetly. _What a pleasant boy_, she thought.

"Hi, Remus. Excited for classes?"

"Definitely. I've missed Hogwarts so much, you know. It just…really feels like home." He smiled at her again as he scooped some eggs onto his toast, and Angelina smiled back.

"I agree. I hope we have Herbology today."

"Is that your favorite class?" Remus asked, smiling gently as she nodded and wiping his mouth with a napkin. After noticing his calm eating habits, Angelina rushed a napkin across her mouth. Faintly in her mind she could hear her mother calling, "Dab! Don't wipe, dab!", so she quickly tried blotting at her lips instead, and Remus just tilted his head at her, confused. Angelina flushed and looked away as he began talking again. "Are you alright?"

"I just had a run in with Snape earlier…"

"Snape?"

"Yeah. It was weird. A bit disconcerting really."

"Don't worry about it, Angelina. He's just a greasy-haired git."

Angelina grinned at him and Remus grinned back. _Yeah,_ she thought, _Snape was just a greasy-haired git, but the boy sitting in front of me certainly is not._


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: A Proclamation of Love and an Appearance by Jolly Dr. Walrus**

Angelina was glad for the entertainment (Sirius and James were always excitable and raucous, even in the morning) as everyone strolled in for their meals, but a bit frustrated. She had been enjoying a nice breakfast with her favorite Marauder until Emily and Elizabeth showed up. The twins snagged the seats to the right of Remus and the right of Angelina and began grabbing some fruit for their breakfasts. This was followed with a light conversation about the weather and then a debate over which season was the most pleasant. James, Sirius, and Peter trailed Lily into the Great Hall and surrounded Angelina and her friends. Lily scowled past Angelina and towards James' furiously gobbling mouth. Sirius looked at Lily with lovely puppy-dog eyes and her stare seemed to waver. _Hot damn_, Angelina thought, _that boy can get anything he want with those beautiful, fantastic, smoky, cloudy, brilliant, perfect, grey eyes. They're so amazing, and deep, and_ _soulful, and honest, and drool-worthy, and-_

_"_Are you alright there, Angie?" James was smirking at her, turning in his seat to get a better look at her. "Seem to be a little hung up on our dear little Sirius, don't you?"

_They're swoon-inducing! _Angelina was considering kicking herself for being so fickle and girly, Sirius for being so dreamy, and James for being such an arrogant prick when it came to his friends as she felt herself beginning to blush a horrible mauve color. She covered her face in her hands and let her eyes peek through the small gaps between her long fingers. Sirius was looking rather smug and Peter looked pleased; Remus was hiding a small smile, and Emily and Elizabeth were raising twin right eyebrows. Lily looked ready to punch someone. Angelina figured it might be a good time to get to Potions.

"Well! Now that I've thoroughly embarrassed myself for the second day running, I think Lily and I will be heading down to Potions. See you lot there! Try not to be too late!" Angelina beamed at everyone in a very pained manner and grabbed Lily's pale arm, tugging on it and pulling her up off the bench of the table.

Angelina could have sworn she heard the rest of them snickering as she quickly walked out of the hall, her arm hooked in Lily's, and down towards the dank dungeons. Lily tugged on her arm when they were outside of Slughorn's classroom, not particularly keen on entering a few minutes early.

"Lena! Calm _down_!" Lily's face was pink. Angelina started feeling slightly guilty for dragging here.

"Sorry, Lily…"

"It's fine. Are you okay?" Lily queried. "You just had this dazed look on your face, and that stupid Potter had to bring it up and embarrass you."

"Yeah. I'm fine. Dandy. Just a little excited to be coming back for the last year, that's all." Angelina beamed at Lily, ignoring those silly monarch butterflies in her stomach._ Sirius Black certainly was __**not**__ dreamy. He was just God's Gift to Women. Oh. Crap. _She frowned.

"Well, Lena, why _were _you staring at Sirius?"

Angelina could have died. Lily's eyebrows were raised conspiratorially, and her lips were smushed together and towards the left side of her mouth in a smirk. It was one of those looks. Those looks which say "I'm-Lily-Evans-The-Brightest-Girl-In-Our-Year-And-I-Am-Only-Asking-You-So-I-Can-Hear-You-Say-Out-Loud-What-I-Already-Have-Decided-And-Feel-Even-Better-About-Myself". Angelina despised those looks, absolutely despised them. It wasn't jealousy, just, abhorrence at the nerve of the green-eyed girl to make such a posh face at everyone totally un-posh.

"He has nice eyes, alright?"

"That's it?" Lily's eyebrows rose dangerously high on her forehead and Angelina's face fell into stoic seriousness.

"No, Lily, I'm head over heels in love with him! I dream about him every night. I watch him from afar and sigh wistfully, hoping he will glance my way!" Angelina's eyes had adopted a sweet look, her cheeks still pink from her embarrassment at the breakfast table and her eyes wide as she pleaded with Lily. "You know that book in my drawer? It's not an organizer at all, it's my wedding plans! I've picked out a dress. It was only 1345 galleons, 16 sickles, and 3 knuts! Oh, Lily, I was going to wait, but, but.."

Lily blinked. "Yes?"

Angelina dropped to her knees, grabbing Lily's hands and tugging on them gently. "Will you be maid of honor?!"

Lily blinked again. Angelina was staring at her so imploringly, her eyes round and the size of saucers. She looked so desperate, so hopeful, that Lily began to panic. Emily and Elizabeth were usually the ones whose fangs sunk into boys' hearts and lived off of them. Angelina tended to like a boy for a little while, keep it quiet, and not dwell on it. Everyone figured she didn't care too much, or was just fickle, because Angelina got over boys rather easily. In second year, Angelina and James had dated until he held another girl's hand on the walk from the castle steps to the Herbology greenhouse and Angelina punched him in the face and then skipped down to the greenhouses to tickle some Mandrake roots before class began (the story turned into one of the highlight's of Lily's past 6 years at Hogwarts). Once, during 4th year, Angelina had gotten over her first major crush on the dashing 7th year Fabian Prewett simply because Lily had taken her to the Room of Requirement. After walking past the wall three times and opening the door to find a simple room and a piano, Angelina fell in love again, this time with Franz Liszt instead of Fabian. Angelina was a simple girl and very easy to distract, so maybe Lily could avoid this entire awkward situation by distracting her.

"LOOK A PINEAPPLE!" Lily's eyes lit up as she exclaimed and she threw out her arm, pointing down the hallway. Angelina just gaped at her blankly and Lily felt a familiar seed of self-doubt implanting itself in her abdomen. She tried harder. "Lena! You're going to miss it! A pineapple! Down the hallway! Away from the Potions room!"

Angelina let her jaw drop as her mind dawned upon the magnificent: She, Angelina Divine, daughter of David and Faith Divine, was the only person in the entire facking history of the planet Earth and the entire bloody history of humanity to ever witness Lily Evans panicking in an awkward situation and hitting a point of desperation. _Brilliant!_ Angelina schooled her face to slackness and stared at her friend, slightly amused with Lily's exasperation. She let her eyes begin to water and blinked frantically, trying to get the tears to fall.

"B-b-b-but Lillllllllllyyyyyyyyyyy…"

Lily dropped her hand and stared at Angelina. Maybe she was misjudging her. Maybe she was a lot more mature. Maybe maturity was one of those proximodistal things, like motor skills, because after all, getting that haircut added years to the maturation of her face, so maybe it was something that started from the inside and progressed outwards to the extremities.

Lily squeezed her eyes shut tightly and began counting to ten over and over again. She could wait it out; she could calm herself before she went totally bonkers. Breathing was good for a body, usually kept it alive. When she opened her eyes Angelina was gone. Lily frantically twisted her head back and forth, searching down the hall. Angelina wasn't in sight, but the rest of the N.E.W.T. level Potions class was. Lily stomped her heel against the stone floor and swept into the Potions room, stalking towards a shaking Angelina.

Angelina couldn't breathe properly because she couldn't stop laughing. She'd never considered herself one for dramatics, but Lily had it coming. _As if I'd ever be in love with Sirius. _Angelina snorted softly and promptly began blushing, both from the uncouth noise she had made and from Lily's glower.

"Angelina Divine, you are despicable!" Lily exclaimed, leaning on Angelina's desk and over her lovely pewter cauldron. Sirius and James occupied the table towards Angelina's and Lily's right, snickering.

Despite her previous embarrassment for the day, Angelina's luck must have been turning. Jolly Dr. Walrus entered the classroom and saved Angelina from Lily's furious verbal abuse as he began writing down an ingredient list and an instructional guide on the blackboard, controlling the yellow chalk with his wand. Angelina liked Professor Slughorn; she found him entertaining. In their previous year, Sirius managed to transfigure Slughorn's face into that of a Walrus with large spectacles. Since that day, Angelina had thoroughly enjoyed referring to the Slug Club founder as "Jolly Dr. Walrus". She never took part in any Slug Club activities. Lily was always invited which made Angelina curious, but then again, Snape was also invited, so she decided maybe Jolly Dr. Walrus shouldn't be a practicing doctor in the near future because of possible head injuries leading to his being a bright red caboose short of a full train set.

Angelina beamed at Lily and looked up towards the board again, staring at Jolly Dr. Walrus in his robes. She didn't know they made robes big enough to swallow the Jolly Dr. Walrus! Lily rolled her eyes and opened her mouth to insist Angelina go get the ingredients when Slughorn interrupted her.

"Now, class. Settle down, settle down." Professor Slughorn threw a nasty look towards James and Remus, the latter's squeals ceased as the former stopped flicking his ears. Angelina hid a snicker while Lily tried her best disapproving look. "This is N.E.W.T level potions, my dear students. This is not a silly class where you will waste your time perfecting pepper-up potions! We will be brewing some more sinister, complex, heavy-hitting potions. In order to master these very intricate ingredient lists and involved brewing instructions, I have paired you into partners which will last the entire year."

Angelina blinked and joined in with the communal groaning of the class a moment later. Everyone quickly began breathing faster, dreading being paired with someone they didn't like. Only 16 students were in the class, four from each house. Everyone always hoped for someone from their house, unless they were Marauder admirers, then they hoped they'd be paired with James or Sirius by some stroke of luck! Lily looked at James and Sirius apprehensively, both of them grinning over at the two girls. Angelina cracked a smile as Slughorn began again.

"Because you are all exemplary students, I have paired you with your peers from other houses. Our headmaster really does like this 'inter-house unity'…" Slughorn trailed off, no doubt thinking of the lovely alcohol the headmaster had given him as a "Welcome Back to Hogwarts, Slugger!" present. "Black and Bard, Diggory and Potter. Divine and Snape. Evans and N-"

But Angelina didn't hear with whom Lily had been paired; she had stopped listening as soon as Jolly Dr. Walrus had uttered the terrible name of her partner. Angelina set a record for fastest development of tunnel vision as she stared at Snape and everything else went black. His sallow skin looked waxy and his bulbous nose appeared to be enlarging as she stared at him, her disbelief of her misfortune making her look at him as though she'd cast "Engorgio" on his facial features. His eyebrows were thick and his eyes were sunken. He was tall and gangly, and his robes were a bit too big; Angelina could see the wear and tear on the bottom hems from his walking on them.

After finally blinking, she saw everyone else but herself and Lily had moved to their partners. Teddy Nott was standing with his hands crossed over his broad chest, tapping his toe and waiting for Angelina to vacate the seat next to Lily. Angelina sucked in a deep breath of air and steadied herself for her mile long walk towards Severus Snape's table. Snape was just standing by his stool, staring at her with this deep look of disgust strewn across his features. Angelina cringed and Lily smiled at her bracingly.

Then she took the walk of shame. Strolling over to be potions partners with Severus Snape. For the entire last year of Hogwarts.

_Shit. _


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Incestuous Slytherins and Herbology with the Hufflepuffs**

Angelina sat down on the stool delicately, trying not to make a total arse out of herself in front of Snape. Not like she didn't already do that this morning, laughing in his slimy face for a good eternity in the middle of the hallway.

Snape didn't even look at her. He just kept himself hunched over his potions book, scribbling in the margins. Angelina scoffed and then relaxed, looking around the room. Sirius had been placed with a quiet girl from Hufflepuff who kept blushing every time he looked at her, James with a friend of his named Amos who played keeper for the Ravenclaw house team. Martha Bard had thin, blonde hair and these watery blue eyes that always bothered Angelina, but she was an okay girl. Amos was quite the looker, fit from all the quidditch practices he ran as captain for the Ravenclaws. He boasted a head full of luscious brunette curls as well as a girlfriend with a luscious bosom and arse. James and Sirius had gotten the good end of this partnering deal. Lily was fidgeting nervously next to Theodore Nott, and Angelina believed that to be quite well founded fidgeting: charming and boyish Teddy was known for being a total womanizer. Angelina grinned despite herself: he was also a known sucker for redheads and girls who were brainy. Lily was in for trouble. And still, Angelina certainly felt as though she had come out with the first partner, even if both her partner and Lily's partner were conniving Slytherins.

_At least Teddy is charming and cute._ She thought. _Snape's just…weird._

Maybe she could try conversation.

"Hey…" Angelina tried, first.

Nothing.

"Severus?"

His hand twitched but he kept scrawling all over his book, trying not to let the ink leak through to the other pages.

"Snape?"

He stopped writing but still didn't look up at Angelina. She scowled.

"Snivelly!"

Snape spun his head to look right at Angelina, staring into her hazel eyes and not blinking. His brow was furrowed as he glared at her, his cheeks turning a splotchy pink color from anger and embarrassment. Angelina blinked a few times and waited for him to speak.

"What do you want?" Snape asked.

_Christ, _she thought,_ he's basically foaming at the mouth. Maybe he was bitten by a rabid lawn gnome…_

"Oh, just some amiable chit-chat," Angelina beamed, "since Jolly Dr. Walrus seems hell bent on giving us the rest of the period to get to know each other better."

It was true. Professor Slughorn had chortlingly granted them the whole block to bond with their new partners, despite Lily's pleas to begin diving into the curriculum immediately.

"I don't want to talk to you, Divine." He spat her name like it was a poison on his tongue and was about to take over his body and make it start spasming all over the Potions room floor.

Angelina grinned wickedly. "That's not what you said this morning, Snivellycakes..."

His face paled. Angelina smirked.

_It's been five minutes and I'm already calling him Snivelly and smirking at him? Shit, slap me with some grey eyes, chiseled cheekbones, and call me Sirius!_

Snape looked confused as Angelina's face slid into disgust comparable to his own. The look only incited him further, and he sneered at her.

"Well, I seemed to have forgotten the meaning of the word 'purity' in the early morning hours. Eating in the company of my _deserving_ brothers and sisters refreshed my memory."

"I knew that you Slytherins were deviating into incest!" Angelina smirked even more as she continued and her face took on a sneer of its own. "No wonder Malfoy looks a bit like a woman and you have that behemoth oily nose! It's mutations from sibling DNA!"

He stared at her, flustered. His skin was a splotchy red color which really would give him a devilishly handsome glow. _Quite the opposite, actually_, Angelina thought._ Looks a bit like a haggard Valentine's Day teddy bear that's gone a bit wonky._

Angelina smiled her most innocuous smile and bowed her head as she leaned over and pulled out some paper and parchment, considering drawing a nice picture of a liger for Sirius, since he didn't believe those existed either. She'd ask Lily to charm it to roar later…

Angelina beamed at Remus as he walked into the greenhouses. He had offered to take her bag down so she could run down ahead of the rest of the class and poke around, looking all the new plants for the year. She had managed to see most of them with Professor Sprout explaining the specific attributes of each plant. Professor Sprout had come to Hogwarts after spending three full years of graduate study in the rainforests of South America. She was young and full of energy, and Angelina got on very well with her. Herbology had become Angelina's favorite in 2nd year when Peter almost had his head swallowed by a man-eating plant and Professor Sprout, in her first year of teaching, had had the entire class of Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors throw conjured cutouts of Merlin at the plant to distract it. She had explained that the plant often preferred the good-looking and audacious, and considered Merlin to be a better substitute than "Gryffindor's dear James Potter". Angelina vaguely remembered that she had disagreed and tried to convince a few burly Hufflepuffs who had just become the starting beaters on the Hufflepuff House quidditch team that James certainly was adequate to feed the monstrous plant. (It had happened to be the same day that James had held the other girls' hand on the way to Greenhouse #2).

She ran over and threw her arms around his torso for a millisecond before pulling away and snagging her bag back to take over to her table with Elizabeth, who had claimed their customary table while Angelina had been greeting Remus. Smiling at Elizabeth as she sat down, Angelina noticed her excitement was taking hold of her body. She could feel the anticipation in her muscles and bones, and her eyes were alight with the prospect of learning something new in a subject area she adored. In 4th year when James, Sirius, Remus, and Peter had asked her how in the hell she could be excited about Herbology, she had expressed those sentiments. James said it sounded something like Quidditch and that he understood her emotions when he pictured a bubotuber being passed from person to person in a greenhouse group (Angelina loved that alliteration, as well) as the chasers passing a quaffle, the earmuffs for mandrake removal as protective beater bats, and the mythical magical jumping beans which jumped 20 feet up, down, and all around, the acquisition of which famous and obscure Herbologists and Herbology Professors scoured the globe as the infamous golden snitch the seeker had searched for the entire game. Sirius said she was absolutely off her "effing smocker". Remus corrected him ("It's a 'rocker', you prick,") and nodded empathetically with Angelina after little convincing, telling her in confidence that he felt similar emotions when caught up in a particularly exciting novel with plot twists and cliff-hangers or horror movie about werewolves and vampires, while Peter made some reference to her excitement being similar to his excitement over exploding snap. Of course, Angelina had never had the problem of trying to express the logic behind her emotions to Emily, Elizabeth, and Lily; they were girls, and so they understood emotions quite well – or at least they had a much deeper understanding than the four fourteen year old boys.

Professor Sprout clapped her hands together in bubbling excitement, her eyes crinkling as she beamed at her class. "Today, we're going to get used to the strenuous Herbology work by transferring some bags of dragon dung. Our dear dainty damsels," Angelina grinned at Professor Sprout, for she always felt as though fondness for alliterations created a bond which tangibility could not penetrate, "shall sort the bags by dragon species, while our mucho masculine males will martyr themselves for the cause: 1st years are too scrawny to get their own bags of dung! Now split into groups of three and get sorting, ladies!"

Angelina and Elizabeth grabbed Emily away from Lily and strutted over to the dragon dung, acting as though it were really possible for a person to be cool around such foul-smelling, well, shit. Lily mock glared at them before waving to a pair of Hufflepuffs whom she knew from Charms Club. Lily was the friendliest and most diplomatic out of the four Gyrffindor girls, so, since the beginning of their years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, if any odd numbered group work ever arose, the twins and Angelina automatically condensed into a familiar group, while Lily used her sweetness and wit to make friends with everyone so she'd never be without a partner.

Elizabeth and Emily quickly filled her in about the goings-on in Divination, specifically regarding a certain Peter Pettigrew and a certain Nancy Jones from Slytherin. The two of them had gotten partnered "accidentally" for the review on palm reading. Both of the Marquis twins had opted out of N.E.W.T level Potions, and after Angelina informed them of the Severus Snape debacle, all three young women had laughed and almost fallen in the fertilizer. When they finished sorting the dragon dung bags by smell, Angelina was feeling absolutely brilliant. It had been a challenge to distinguish the slight difference of aroma between the feces of the Swedish Shortsnout and those of the Chinese Fireball, but the three of them had done it, and Angelina was proud. Remus and James looked a bit worse for the wear, and Sirius was sporting some dark streaks across his robes from an incident where James talked Remus into tying Peter's shoelaces together. Peter lifted a bag of dung, attempted to walk, and flew forward instead, tossing the bag forward. Everyone watched with bated breaths and a few girls gasped with shock and horror as the bag sailed through the air and smashed straight into Sirius Black. The bag then proceeded to burst open and cover him in the icky, icky Horntail dung a group of attractive Hufflepuff girls had been sorting. James had yet to inform Emily, Elizabeth, and Angelina that those girls were the very reason Sirius had chosen not to work with Lily's group, but everyone present found the situation amusing enough as it was. Once Professor Sprout was finished chuckling, she sent the class up to lunch early, encouraging Sirius to make much of the extra time to go freshen up a bit before trying to sit near anyone with plans for a large lunch.

Angelina, Lily, Elizabeth, and Emily watched Sirius rush up the hill towards the castle hoping to avoid the "beginning of the 'LSH'" - Lunch Social Hour. They were gripping each other's arms for support as they stumbled into the great hall, laughing at the brilliant beginning to their final year, their stomachs growling with anticipation for a well deserved lunch.

Angelina grinned to herself as her tummy let out loud rumble. "Well, chaps. Our little Lily always did say that laughter and fun made a body healthy, wealthy, and wise!"

"I did?" asked Lily, blinking a few times and staring upwards towards the ceiling, sifting through shelves and shelves of class notes, spells, gossip, and magazine tips until she reached a mental file labeled "Proverbs and Words to Live By". She wasn't finding anything phrased in such a manner. "Are you quite sure, Angelina?"

"No, she's not!"

"Hey!" Angelina pouted at Emily, who was grinning wickedly.

"Well, Lena! You _are_ wrong." Emily laughed as Angelina stuck out her short tongue. "It's 'Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise!'"

"Yeah, Lily used to repeat it ad nauseum when we tried to stay up all night talking about James and Sirius in second year." Elizabeth smirked at Lily as they sat down at the Gryffindor table, several seats down from a darkly handsome 6th year named Ciaran. "But we all know the real reasons behind that one."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, Lily," Angelina began, "We all really knew you didn't care about our physical, fiscal, and mental well-being." Lily looked aghast as her cheeks turned slightly rose.

"You were just pining after James already, yeah?" Emily smirked a dark smirk to match her twin's and ducked under the table to avoid the slice of bread Lily threw at her tanned face.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: A New Student and a Synopsis of the Hogwarts Bells and Staircases**

History of Magic was an absolutely atrocious class, Angelina decided. Not only was she apart from Emily, Elizabeth, and Lily, but the only people with whom she considered herself friendly were everybody's favorite bad-boy Marauder and everybody's favorite tag-along Marauder, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew. The two followed Angelina inside the classroom as though they were all jolly good mates, but quickly abandoned her for a table towards the back of the room. Every girl in the class except for Angelina Divine turned in her respective seat and sighed to varying degrees as Sirius strutted to the corner table, Peter gliding along next to him, both of the boys smiling as smoothly as possible to all the girls getting out of their chairs to crowd them. Angelina turned in her seat and glowered back at them. How dare they abandon her? Huffing loudly, she choked on a particularly potent waft of lilac scented perfume as a girl flounced by. Some days, Angelina hated sitting in the front of the classroom.

There was a rather handsome bloke standing by the doorway, blinking his light eyes slowly. Angelina gave him the once over: his hair was curly and a dark auburn color, which made his blue eyes striking. Mr. Mystery Magician (Angelina's mind had worked furiously to make up an enticing alliteration on the spot) had a muscled build but still seemed fairly tall to Angelina, who was sitting at the table furthest from the door in the front row. He flushed when he made eye contact with Angelina and walked over quickly, trying to avoid any other curious glances. As he came closer, Angelina noticed his Ravenclaw tie and badge, as well as the large sapphire ring on his middle finger, inspiring her to raise her eyebrows.

"Err...hello?" His face was turning a lovely shade of burgundy, she noticed, and it was certainly better than that strange color Severus Snape's face seemed to enjoy showcasing when he was angry or embarrassed.

"Hi…" And she couldn't keep a smirk off her face, she also noticed.

"I just transferred…" The door slammed and he hopped into the empty seat next to her, even his ears taking on a slight shade of red. He opened his mouth slightly at the corner and whispered quietly to Angelina. "I hope you don't mind?"

She just smiled and shook her head.

Billy-Bob Binns the Boob (her mind just never stopped working!) had seemed a bit confused when the door closed, probably because his apparition status did not allow him to move any tangible objects and he certainly had not traversed far enough away from his spot at the chalk board to even attempt to slam the door shut with enough force as the culprit. The culprit was one Madelyn Hower, a nerdy Ravenclaw with glasses and black hair who desperately feared lobsters, rushing in to claim a seat with her best friend since 1st year, Mary Haddon. Nonetheless, Binns coughed loudly and began lecturing about the decrees put in place over the past century to restrict underage magic outside of school. It wasn't that Angelina wasn't wholly interested in the seven hundred and eighty three decrees, but she just couldn't focus. Everyone found it hard to sink back into a standard schooling schedule after the lazy summer months, right? Or maybe it was because of the new student sitting next to her. Instead of listening to Binns' ramblings on Decree Double X Y Z ratified in 1906, Angelina studied the boy next to her…

He had a nice facial structure, that's for sure. His jaw was strong and chiseled, his nose rather Roman; Angelina had noticed that right off the bat. Upon closer inspection she saw his skin was not quite as smooth as Remus' but, she hated to admit, a sturdier, manlier haired version of Severus Snape's. He had short eyelashes and a distinctly aquiline nose, indeed! His arms appeared quite nicely muscular, in Angelina's opinion, and she took a stab at guessing he might've been a quidditch player and rather fit one at that! She smiled when he saw he was looking at her, his slightly puffy cheeks flushed a red color once more.

"I'm Angelina," she whispered.

"Bradley," he smiled back at her. A nice smile.

_Attention witch population at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry: Bradley has dimples! _Angelina grinned to herself. Maybe this year, Binns' lectures wouldn't be so painful. Maybe she could focus a bit more, take some notes, share some quills with some cute young men from other houses who happened to be shy and simple, unlike the obnoxious, arrogant Marauding boys from her own house…

Maybe sitting in the front of the classroom during a ridiculously boring class with a ghost for a teacher when a new student joined the year wasn't _always_ a bad thing…

…Just a bad thing a good 99% of the time. Like right now: right now because Bradley kept staring at Binns like he was about to share the secret for eternal existence, eternal ecstasy, or eternal erections for teenage boys who attend Hogwarts and can't keep down a steady girlfriend. _Something_ like that, anyway.

Angelina always found the school system to be a bit hackneyed. It was serious behavioral conditioning. In elementary school, the teachers always made the poor little kids walk in a straight line down the left side of the hallway, whether solely for organization or because they were evil, demented people bent on controlling the lives of the children, one may never truly know. And now, in Hogwarts, all the students walk on the left side of the hallway to go to their classes, unless they feel like being crushed in a tidal wave of red, gold, silver, blue, green, yellow, and black. _Then there were the bells_, Angelina began thinking as she grabbed her books the instant the bells began ringing. _Everyone just collects their things and meanders to their next class. I love the tones of the Hogwarts bells, though…_ (It had become a well-known fact that a group of house elves had been assigned to work in the bell-tower located near the Astronomy tower, and Dumbledore had persuaded them to keep alarm clocks within one square meter of their tiny elf bodies at all times, each clock set to go off just 3 seconds ahead of the actual time so they could prepare themselves to jump onto and then hang from the ropes to ring the bells for each class period. There were usually 5 elves for the regular hour chiming, but 10 for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and curfew.)

She walked towards the door and waited for the overly perfumed girls to follow in the wake of Peter and Sirius. Her preconscious self began to take over as she breathed deeply and hung a right once she was out of the doorway, staying a few feet from Peter and Sirius, for fear of possible trampling. In the silence of the slow pace she was setting, Angelina could have sworn she was hearing a slight coughing, and someone whispering her name. Scratching her head, she turned around, letting her hair whip around her, and spotted him.

"Oh, hello, Bradley."

He smiled at her gently, still blushing. "Hi, Angelina…" She beamed, stopped in the middle of the hallway, as he began speaking again. "Could you, err… See, I don't know where to find Professor Slughorn's room for Potions class…"

"Oh! It's down in the dungeons! You just turn yourself around a full 90 degrees and walk until you come to a staircase, which you may have to wait for, because it happens to be one of the few staircases that flips to the wall directly across and spends time with its favorite portrait. And once you make it down the stairs, you'll take a sharp left until you reach the double pillars, and you follow straight through there, yeah? Then you'll walk for a few minutes and almost trip down the stairs that go down to the dungeons. Once you're in the dungeons, you discover a narrow little corridor to the right, and a large open one to the left, you'll want that one, trust me. Then, once you walk into that hall, it's the second door on the right."

Angelina grinned at him happily until she saw his face; his blank stare. _Uh oh. _

"Look, I'm sorry," she began again, frowning. "Maybe I should write that down?"

Bradley looked horrified before regaining composure, and speaking. "Well, maybe you wouldn't mind showing me the way? I think I got lost somewhere around you mentioning a staircase being having a favorite portrait…" He was cut off by Angelina's loud laugh.

"Oh, right! Sure, I'll walk you down. I guess I've been traversing these halls for so long that I don't even think about it. Preconsciousness, you know!" She winked, and slung her arm through his, pulling him towards the first staircase. Angelina had a strange thought race through her head for merely a split second, wondering why she was being so bold and flirtatious with this boy, before she repressed it quickly. She allowed the fleeting query to be replaced with a notation of how nicely firm his arm was, and that he seemed to smell of cinnamon.

As they walked down the hall, Angelina kept chatting away, trying to keep such a kind, sincere boy entertained before those damn arrogant Ravenclaws tainted him with pompousness.

"The staircases here are a bit strange, yeah," she responded to his question regarding the aforementioned staircase's movement and amiable relations with a portrait. "This particular one," she tossed her head back a bit to signify she was talking about the staircase from which they had just descended, "happens to enjoy the company of a painting of Glinda, this pretty blonde witch."

"Glinda?" Bradley repeated.

"Oh, yeah. She's this tall, leggy witch with big blonde curls. Just proves so much of a relationship can be about physical attraction, I suppose. Even with staircases! You'd think the staircases would be attracted to the powerful magic a witch or wizard had, but Glinda wasn't even that great! I mean, really! I think I'd go after the dazzling Baroque portrait of Priscilla the Powerful if I were a staircase...And oh! Here we are at Dr. Jolly Walrus' room."

She looked up at Bradley's face as they turned into the large corridor and stopped outside the large oak door of Slughorn's classroom. His eyebrows were raised and Angelina noted a teeny smirk that was particularly becoming across his prominent features. "Do you often think of being a staircase, Angelina?"

"Oh. Oh, no! I just...I…I'm going to head to Defense, now! Oh, Merlin, I swear, I'm not crazy!"

And she was off, sprinting back up the staircase to the hallway of the ground level of Hogwarts as she heard the door to the classroom she had just stood outside of for a minute open and close. When she had raced her way up to the Glinda-fixated staircase, Angelina blushed horribly, as if everything she'd said in the past five minutes had come rushing back to her in that second of time. _Blimey,_ she thought as she slowed her pace to regain her breath while walking up the staircase, _did I really just ramble like that? Oh, honestly…If I were a staircase, I'd choose Priscilla the Powerful?__** When **__did I even __**consider**__ that!? _Mortified, she entered the classroom.

"DIVINE!"

And apparently, she had entered the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom a bit late, because Professor Crumplant did not appear to be pleased with her arrival.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: The Examination of a Previously Unconsidered Ability to Produce a (Not So) Coporeal Patronus**

Angelina hurriedly plopped into the empty seat next to Remus, smiling as he blinked at her and pulling out parchment and a quill from her bag. She loved the scent of fresh parchment, the way her sweeping navy blue letters contrasted against the beige color when she wrote swiftly, and the soft crinkling noise it could make if you crunched it up because some dumb Marauder happened to poke you in the back while you were writing, which caused you to leave a large, unattractive ink-blob in the middle of the very important notes you had been copying from the board located at the front of the classroom.

Oh wait. She didn't enjoy _that_. Not at all.

"What?" she hissed, turning around in her chair and glaring at Sirius.

"Where were you, Angiepie?" He pouted at her, his lips smooshed together in a very sultry manner which Angelina couldn't help but find swoon-worthy…

Luckily, she did manage to catch herself mid-sigh and mid-swoon and huffed at him, turning back around and starting a fresh section of prerequisites for action against another witch or wizard in a time of danger on her parchment. As she wrote it down, she began finding it confusing, and all the terminology used for deciding who was in the right and who was in the wrong in any given situation seemed a big vague if one was going to have to determine whether or not they were allowed to use a spell in defense. Angelina blew her hair out of her eyes and peered over at Remus' paper. He was working diligently, and his ink was black. The letters sort of linked together like he was writing in script. She kept following his writing instead of doing her own, and it took her a moment to realize that while he had paused and done a nice semicolon in his writing he had really stopped to look at her, probably confused as to why she had been staring at his boring note-taking for the past fifty-two minutes.

"Hello, Angelina," He began as he smiled slightly, still looking fairly confused, "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, no, sorry," Angelina felt her face become warm as she tried to respond. "I was writing, and then I didn't quite understand, and I looked over to ask you a question about it, but then I started watching you writing and it was interesting, and I feel like a right freak at the moment, sorry."

Remus quietly laughed and Angelina tilted her head to the side.

"I'd be happy to go over it with you later, if you'd like?"

"Oh! Oh, no. No, Remus, I think I'll be fi-"

"Divine!"

Angelina tore her eyes away from Remus and turned them towards the front of their desk. First, they spied a dark green robe, taut over a rounded form. Then they traveled upwards to a neck with lots of heavy jewelry hanging down, seemingly sinking into the skin of the person. And finally, she found the chin, the rounded nose, the sharp grey eyes, and overall red tinge of her professor's face and deemed she must be one unhappy woman at the moment.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Miss Divine, since you insist on disrupting my classroom, I simply must believe that you are excited to participate in the practical part of this lesson. Stand, please."

Angelina threw her chair back from the table and stood straight up, slamming her feet together and staring ahead, trying to use her body language to show Professor Crumplant that she was indeed a good student and not one to disrupt such an important class as Defense Against the Dark Arts!

"Now," Professor Crumplant began, "I would like for you to produce a corporeal Patronus."

"But Professor!" Angelina cried. "We're not even studying The Patronus Charm!"

"Well, I suppose you'll just have to try on your own, now won't you?"

Angelina's mouth dropped. _The absolute cow of a woman!_ Angelina had read about the Patronus Charm once in Fifth Year when she was preparing herself for a battle of intelligence between herself and Sirius Black, for she had desperately wanted to win the right to broadcast the fact that the famous Marauder could not outsmart a plain, half-blooded witch without any particularly magical upbringing; (Her father, David, had actually attended Hogwarts several decades ago, a student of the Ravenclaw house. However, after graduation he had chosen to move back into a muggle swing of things, taking a job as a music instructor at a local college, and soon he met Angelina's mother while visiting his sick brother in the hospital. Faith Harcourt was a rather comely woman, with large blue eyes and light brown hair to her waist. When they were married, David never spoke about his wizarding heritage, and even kept it quiet until Angelina received her letter the summer she after she had turned 11. She still didn't practice magic at home, even while on summer break.) And, in any case, Angelina had never actually done the charm, merely researched it to make Sirius shut up about his being a triple threat – "Most Handsome, Most Talented, and Most Intelligent Boy in Hogwarts' Entire 5th Year and Entire Gryffindor House".

Angelina decided now must be as good a time as any to make an arse out of herself for probably the twenty-seventh time this school year.

"Well," Angelina breathed, "I guess I'll…do that."

She allowed her eyes to dart quickly around and consider the other students in the classroom. Remus was staring up at her from his seat, his hands clasped while he began gnawing on his bottom lip. Sirius was beginning to lean back in his chair, his long legs stretched out into the aisle between tables and his hands clasped behind his head, a smirk on his face. Peter was trying his very hardest to mimic Sirius, but his legs were a bit short and he settled, or at least it appeared to be that way in Angelina's point of view, for looking cool by leaning back on the rear legs of the chair he was occupying. James was poking Lily in the back, and Lily was frantically trying to make him desist, while also shooting worried looks at Angelina. Professor Crumplant was looking absolutely giddy, her face flushed red with delight at embarrassing a student. She kept licking her lips, as if ready to eat Angelina's horror the moment she couldn't produce a satisfactory Patronus Charm. Angelina closed her eyes to the world (or really, just her lovely classmates), trying to concentrate.

_A Patronus Charm, A Patronus Charm…_ Angelina thought to herself. _After yelling 'Expecto Patronum', something happens. It wards off Dementors, takes the form of an animal unless you really suck at thinking of happy things and producing a corporeal one, and then it's just a wisp of silvery, smoky stuff. Aha! Thinking happy thoughts! Happy thoughts will do it!_

Angelina began remembering. Happy thoughts were a bit hard to come by, she figured. Childhood reminded Angelina of happiness, sure, but it was never really a specific, tangible happiness. She could remember playing games with her dad, and her mother dressing her up in frilly dresses for tea with her stuffed frog, Benajmin. Nothing particularly stuck out, though. Even in all her six years at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Angelina was struggling to remember a particularly pleasant and overwhelming memory. Angelina could remember meeting Lily on the train, because Angelina had giggled madly at Lily's 11-year-old bright red, embarrassed face and bright red hair, and how both had clashed so horribly with the scarlet paint on the entire train. Angelina remembered levitating a feather in Charms class, their first official class as young witches and wizards, and the great burst of pride it had given her to manipulate still, Angelina struggled to think of anything exemplary, and decided it would be best to try and use the memory of accomplishing her first real spell, _Wingardium Leviosa_.

Focusing, Angelina tried to recall the feelings of elation she had felt as a small, insecure 11-year-old. Magic made her feel special, like she mattered in the large, large world in which everyone lived. She was smiling softly to herself, remembering the feel of her rosewood wand in her small, pale hand, and the way her slightly too large sweater and skirt hung off her body. The way her friend Lily had beamed and thrown her arms around her in excitement. Angelina tried to feel every sensation she could as she braced herself for the incantation.

_"Expecto Patronum!"_

Angelina felt the rush of energy expulsed from her body, the same feeling elicited from casting any spell. Her mind blanked for a moment, and when she felt the pitch black in her consciousness, she opened her eyes, gazing around for any silvery animal parading about.

She didn't see it.

Eyes traveling down her shoulder, upper arm, elbow, forearm, wrist and hand, Angelina stared at the wand, her heart feeling as though it were collapsing in on itself as disappointment seeped through her being.

All that existed were whirling streaks of grey, twisting around each other desperately, but never combining, only to disperse and evaporate into the musty, Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom air. And that was quite the same longing for which Angelina felt at the moment: a burning desire to disperse and evaporate from her spot in the middle of the aisle.

"Sit," came Professor Crumplant's harsh voice. Large eyebrows furrowed, she was frowning at Angelina. "Sit!"

Angelina jumped slightly and began blinking rapidly, taking in her surroundings as she sat down rigidly. Upon seeing her peers' mocking sneers and bewildered stares, however, Angelina quickly slumped in her seat, fighting back the prickling needles threatening to take over her eyes and send floods of tears down her face. She felt Remus' hand cover her own, and though the feeling of his callused palm against the soft back of her hand was a bit curious, she began to think she was taking in the warmth of his hand through her skin, and found it calming.

Smiling to herself as Sirius loudly pointed out that the Hufflepuffs were about ready to get their "puffs huffled" if they didn't kindly close their quiet, gaping mouths and sit their pleasantly loyal bottoms in their chairs, Angelina turned her dark eyes upwards to scan the front of the classroom and to find and to glower at Professor Crumplant for her dirty punishment of public humiliation.

The bell rang just as Professor Crumplant was mid-exclamation of "Detention, Black!", and the class erupted into laughter and grinned as Sirius ran out of the room before she could finish disciplining him. Angelina smiled a little wider and watched everyone shuffle out of the room, heading to a well-deserved dinner in the Great Hall. James was trying both to get Lily's attention and to grab Sirius' school bag at the same time, and failing quite admirably at both, spinning around and walking into the door Lily had slammed in his face after he had turned back around to pull Sirius' bag loose from a rough nail sticking out of the floor against which he had been dragging the sack. Peter walked out while chatting animatedly with Emily and Elizabeth, hooking his hand around James' elbow and pulling him out of the room.

As the door slowly squeaked on its hinges and all but silenced the noise from students clattering through the hallways, Remus turned and looked at Angelina. When she noticed his eyes on her, she blushed and smiled at him, her smile growing when he returned with a slight grin.

"Well, we should be getting to dinner, yeah?" Remus asked, tilting his head a bit to the right as he watched her.

Angelina frowned a bit. "I think I'm actually heading up to the dorms to drop off my things first…"

"I'll go with you," he offered, "Escort you even, make sure no crazy staircases or portraits go after you." Angelina flushed a lovely scarlet at the mention of staircases and portraits, worried he knew something of her conversation with Brad, and when he winked, she cringed, fairly certain he had indeed some inkling as to the embarrassing things she had mentioned.

"Oh, I think I'll be fine, really, Remus."

His face fell and Angelina felt a twang of pain shoot through her chest. Disappointment. She had just disappointed someone after feeling the same emotion course through her body only minutes ago. She squeezed his hand lightly before letting go, suddenly remembering that he had comforted her for the remainder of the class period, that he had covered her hand with his own in sympathy. Angelina smiled.

Remus' face came up and his soft, honey colored eyes looked into Angelina's very own hazel eyes. They let their hands part as they stood up, Remus breaking the silence as the two walked towards the door. "I'll wait for you here, and accompany you down to the hall then. No one really likes going in alone anyway, yeah?"

Angelina bit her bottom lip softly, walking through the doorway as Remus held it open for her. Her mind was racing, and her stomach was twisting. "Sure, Remus. I'd like for you to take me down to dinner." She looked up at his face, saw his wide grin, and immediately found her cheeks were pulsing with heat yet another time.

Turning on her heel, she strode purposefully up towards the staircase to the left. Angelina had not even made it up the first seven steps before she discovered that her face was still hot and most likely an extremely unpleasant shade of crimson, her insides were wriggling somewhat uncomfortably, and her heart was moving at a slightly faster speed than resting normality, she figured, because she felt as though she'd just run all the way up from the dungeons again. In addition, her brilliantly hormonal mind was commanding her to turn around and look.

She stopped on the eighth stair and twisted her upper body around. Remus was watching her, and his face seemed slightly pink from where Angelina was standing. He waved slightly to her, grinning again. Angelina felt all three symptoms come back tenfold and turned about and ran up the stairs. And despite the strange giddiness and confusion she was feeling, she knew one thing was absolutely certain.

As much as she commanded them to, her lips would not relax. As much as she tried, she could not wipe the goofy smile off of her face. And as much as she feared it wouldn't go away for the rest of their first week, Angelina did not believe it would be a bad thing.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Awkward Walks and Incessant Butterflies**

Racing her way up to the Gryffindor Common Room, Angelina considered her situation. Certainly nothing like that had ever happened before. When she had been a bit younger and more fickle, she had developed a short crush on Sirius, and then one on James, but never_ Remus_!

Remus had always been the friend, the boy to pal around with and know that nothing would be misconstrued and developed into a scandalizing rumor. Remus had always been the tutor for any and all subjects, as he had a remarkable memory for facts.

Angelina drifted from her thoughts and ran up the steps to the Girls Dormitory. Flinging her bag onto her bed, she darted into the bathroom and peered into a mirror.

She had always considered her nose the best feature on her face. Her nose was perfectly proportioned for her facial features. Her eyes were rather small and a medium brown color, but she quite liked her long eyelashes. Angelina thought her cheeks might be a bit puffy, and her lips a bit pink, but that she could live with. Letting out a frustrated groan, she felt her fingers itch and begin to move towards Emily's section of make-up lying on the counter. Selecting a bronze shadow, she quickly rubbed her finger in it and smeared it across her lids and dabbed at the inside and outside corners of her eyes. Angelina quickly ran her fingers through her auburn hair, now flattening from the day's stress, and tried to puff it up a bit, make it appear more enticing. And lastly, she grabbed mascara and pulled it over the top set of lashes on each eye. Finished freshening up, she smiled hesitantly at herself in the mirror. Then, without thinking, she began pulling faces at her reflection.

First, a slight pucker of the lips and a deftly raised eyebrow. Lower the eyebrow and add a slight smirk. Remove the smirk and smile sweetly, flutter the eyelids a few times. Bite bottom lip alluringly, turn face to the left, and peer right. Smile wide and laugh!

Angelina frowned once a rather fake laugh tore from her throat and rang throughout the bathroom and dormitory which were empty, save her own presence. Here she was, making faces at herself in a mirror while Remus awaited her return. Seriously, was she dumb or something?!

The younger students looked at her a bit strangely as she sprinted back down from the Girls Dormitory, past the well-cushioned maroon couches and arm chairs, and through the portrait of the Fat Lady. Angelina was running down the hall towards the staircase before she realized her face felt hot from her recent activity and decided to slow down, and take each step deliberately so she could cool down and not look like a panicking mess when she reached the point where she had left Remus.

Seeing him looking the other way, just several individual stairs and a few long strides away, Angelina quickly fanned her face in a final attempt to look "cool" and bit her lip as she looked at him, studying his appearance.

Remus certainly was attractive. _Very much so_, she thought. His height was certainly appealing; Angelina was of the belief that the boy of the relationship should be taller than the girl, and always thought it was adorable when she saw couples, and the boy had to lean down over his girlfriend to give her a short peck on the lips. And though he seemed a bit gangly, his arms were defined and Angelina found herself thinking she'd quite like to have them wrapped around her body and –

"Hey!"

Angelina flushed as he greeted her, walking towards her motionless body on the steps. He smiled up at her and waited for her to descend so they could walk together to the Great Hall.

"Hello. Thanks for waiting, Remus…"

"Not a problem, Angelina."

Their warm greetings were followed by an overwhelming silence. Angelina began to mentally kick herself for being so awkward. How had she done this? It must be her fault, for Remus seemed to be quite embarrassed as well, and looked at the ground as they walked.

This was exactly why Angelina never fancied boys. This situation was_ exactly _why. When she was younger, she'd discovered that some Gryffindor boys were a bit cuter than others, and some were a bit funnier, and some were a bit smarter, and she would giggle when the cute, funny, or smart ones talked to her. She had always been shy, but managed to ignore boys most of the time, probably because of Lily's influence. Lily found most of the boys in their year to be a total waste of time, and it rubbed off on Angelina's perspective. But then, in the off chance that Angelina did notice that Henry had an adorable spattering of freckles across his nose while they were in fourth year, and that James was certainly very witty before he held another girl's hand on the way to that fateful Herbology class in second year, she tended to not dwell on the butterflies she might feel in her stomach.

And now, as she walked alongside Remus in silence, she continued to ponder. In reality, she had only really known what to call butterflies once another girl in her year had explained that it was a feeling in her tummy that happened when a boy she loved would walk by, and that it felt like something were happening in her abdomen that was very dangerous but very pleasant, all the same. Sometime last year, Angelina had discovered that if she really thought and analyzed the possibility of having feelings for a boy, she usually did indeed end up fancying him. And fancying a boy turned into a larger problem when she was too shy to flirt or to smile coyly when he walked past her in the hallway or the common room. Really, Angelina found it was much simpler to not dwell on the idea of a steady boyfriend or going to Hogsmeade with someone special; she was better able to focus on her schoolwork, her friendships, and her music. Not developing sentimental and amorous feelings for boys had become a part of Angelina's life, and she would need to keep it that way in order to perform well on her N.E.W.T.s and to make sure she had the best time possible during her last year at Hogwarts without any horrible falling outs with friends.

And because of that, Angelina simply would not consider jeopardizing her grades and her stable, comfortable friendship with Remus Lupin because of some ridiculous thing called "butterflies" that a girl might get while in the presence of a very kind, very intelligent, and very handsome boy.

The ridiculous things that would not cease to flutter around her abdomen and begin to fly up her esophagus and out of her dry mouth never to return, as she walked along the corridors with the very kind, very intelligent, and very handsome Remus Lupin.

"Ermm, Angelina?" Remus queried, standing before the doors of the Great Hall.

She smiled up at him hesitantly, embarrassed for their long silence the entire way.

"Yeah, Remus?"

"I'm sorry about being so quiet…"

"Oh! Well, I am too. We'll call it a draw." She bit back the urge to stick her tongue out in good humor, and instead continued smiling.

Once Remus had grinned, Angelina quickly stepped forward and opened the doors, walking quickly over to the moderately occupied Gryffindor table, feeling Remus' presence following her closely before parting to sit down next to James, Sirius, and Peter a bit down the table from Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth.

As she sat, Elizabeth's voice cut through the dull murmur of the excited voices echoing from all the tables and across the whole of the Great Hall.

"Remus?"

"What about him?" Angelina tried desperately not to allow herself to blush, for her butterflies were just starting to disappear.

"Walking in together after a bit of a long absence between Defense class and right now? No, that's not conspicuous at _all_, Angie."

For a moment, Angelina was stunned at the sarcastic edge in Lily's voice, but quickly noticed the playful gleam in her eye and her conspiratorial smirk, a smirk that far surpassed the danger in the twins' smirks.

"Oh!" There went the heat to her cheeks, and Angelina was pretty confident that they were so hot they were going to burn up the rest of her pale face. "He just offered to walk me down here, you know, since Crumplant is such a cow."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, Em, really."

"But, if I remember correctly, it does not take five hours to walk down here from the Defense classroom."

Angelina flushed darker as Elizabeth and Lily snickered at Emily's teasing comment, though she did believe it to be a bit of a hyperbole.

"It certainly was not five hours, Emily, and you know it."

"Are you sure, Angie?" Angelina felt her face start to cool down and closed her eyes after rolling them at Elizabeth's slightly darker voice. "Are you absolutely positive that you did not lose track of your time while staring into Remus' dazzling blue eyes?"

Angelina's face cracked into a smile as she replied, "They're hazel," and then opened her eyes wide and stared at her friends.

Their faces mirrored her own expression of shock, momentarily. Emily's face was the first to break, falling into a large grin which showed off her white teeth and was almost immediately followed by a congruent expression on her sister's face. Lily tried her best to remain straight-faced after her jaw came back up from resting on the surface of the table, but lost the battle and her lips wobbled quite a bit. Angelina's nose scrunched up and she squeezed her eyes shut tightly before giggling insanely. The giggles caused the other three to start laughing, and, soon, the rest of the Great Hall looked at them rather suspiciously.

Angelina felt like she'd been a small mess emotionally because of her eventful start to seventh year, and when she couldn't stop laughing, she believed that laughter must really be a catharsis, for she felt better already and less tense about the entire possibility of fancying Remus, and of making a horrible impression on Bradley, and of not living up to her potential, both academically as well as socially, to enjoy this final year of school with her friends. It was not until tears were streaming down her face, and her stomach hurt that she looked into her friends' faces and saw they were just finishing their laughter as well, a few stray tears on their cheeks. And seeing her friends' warm, eager faces, she knew that seventh year was going to better than the others.

After pulling apart her roll and eating a large portion of mashed potatoes and ham, Angelina chanced a glance down the table towards Remus. His large white teeth showed as his lips spread apart in a smile at something Sirius had said, Angelina deduced, because James and Peter were snorting and choking on their food. She felt her lips pull back in a smile, and then quickly looked away; Remus had caught her watching him, and flicked his eyes over to meet hers for a very long, drawn out moment before he returned his gaze to his friends.

Lily was soon up from the bench, and dragging Elizabeth up by the arm, vocalizing her desire to go back to the common room and get an outline of her Charms essay done before it was time for bed.

"Isn't that due next Thursday, Lena?" Emily asked.

Angelina rolled her eyes and nodded, standing up with Emily and walking out of the hall to catch up with Elizabeth and Lily.

Back in the Common Room, Angelina debriefed the three girls as to the happenings between the end of Defense Against the Dark Arts and her entrance with Remus at dinner.

"I promise that it's really nothing. I don't like Remus; I just haven't seen a boy even remotely good-looking or sincere all summer!"

"It's just a coincidentally good thing he's a great bloke with nice eyes, a brilliant mind, and a soft-spoken demeanor, yeah?" Emily winked at Angelina, who was laughing quietly.

"Absolutely, Emily," Angelina pulled a face at her, which triggered an association to make her remember her time spent in front of the mirror previously in the day. How foolish she was being, dwelling so much on unimportant things.

Emily shrugged and patted Angelina gently on the shoulder, hiding a smile and going to play wizard's chess with her twin.

Angelina curled up on the couch and "mhmmm"'d as Lily asked questions about Reversal Charms for her essay. The couches in the Gryffindor Common Room certainly were comfortable and warm. Or maybe the fire was making everything warm, Angelina really wasn't sure. Everything was rather pleasant at the moment…

Blinking a few times, Angelina came to a conclusion, although she didn't understand it. She was on the floor, and her bum hurt quite a bit. There were feet in her line of sight, and she looked up to see a concerned smile and furrowed brow line on the face of Remus.

"Are you alright, Angelina?"

"Yeah, I just…"

"I believe you were sleeping. I dropped my book accidentally, and I must've startled you awake."

Angelina nodded slightly and reached to take his extended hand. As he pulled her to her feet, she glanced at the clock above the fireplace and cringed: it was past two in the morning.

"Oh, Remus. Why are you still awake? It's so late." Angelina frowned at him, worried that he'd be too tired for classes the next day.

He smiled a bit ruefully as he walked her towards the stairs, his hand holding onto hers loosely.

"I like reading, you know? So, I was reading this novel," he began.

"And you got caught up in it? Yeah," she continued as he nodded, "I know what you mean. I'd question you for more information about the novel, but I'm a bit groggy…"

He chuckled softly and Angelina smiled sweetly, looking up at him as they reached the bottom of the girls' stairs.

"Goodnight, Angelina." Remus squeezed her hand lightly and pulled her in for a hug.

Angelina's mind seemed slow, and she didn't seem to recall her pondering before dinner about what it might feel like to be wrapped in his arms, but when he pulled back slowly, she noticed a faint tinge of color on his high cheekbones, and her body missed his warmth instantly. And part her abdomen didn't feel to be quite as groggy, for it seemed as though those incessant butterflies had returned in a matter of seconds.

"Sweet dreams, Remus," she muttered.

She turned around and walked slowly up the stairs. _Today ended rather pleasantly_, she thought. _Hugs are rather pleasant, indeed. So are Remus' arms…_

After making it into the seventh year dormitory and having finished undressing and changing into pajamas, Angelina climbed into her four-post bed. The blankets were warm and the pillows were perfectly fluffed. She reflected on the day as she felt Sleep begin tucking her in with gentle hands and decided that this might not only be better than her previous year at Hogwarts, it would definitely be the best year of them all.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: A Thoroughly Charming Morning**

Sometimes Angelina thought that Lily Evans was part songbird.

Angelina had endured her first wake up in the Girls' 7th Dormitory à la Lily's rendition of "Once Upon A Dream" from Disney's_ Sleeping Beauty_ approximately forty-five minutes ago. Lily had been flitting about as she pulled on her sweater and skirt, doing a lovely set of ballet twists and turns and leaps. Once she had dressed, Lily twirled around in waltzing circles while waiting for the other girls to follow the extremely important practices of every-morning-personal-hygiene (which includes bladder relieving, warm showering, hair washing, leg shaving, tooth brushing, make-up applying, hair drying, and freshly laundered uniform dressing). She had even pirouetted down the corridors to the Great Hall, breaking her near continuous whistling and humming to scold Emily, Elizabeth, and Angelina on being "cranky, whiny, morning slags". And now, they were eating their breakfasts in the too bright, too chattery, Great Hall.

Or, at least, Angelina, Emily, and Elizabeth were eating breakfast, their eyelids drooping and their cereals becoming soggy; Lily had chugged her orange juice and scarfed down her toast in a manner of minutes, but her roommates hadn't noticed because it seemed to be that their dear Lily was humming to herself yet again.

An obnoxious group of boys, however, had.

"Holy hell, Evans!" Sirius Black's voice rang out, quite rudely. "Blimey, James. You're in love with _that_?"

Suddenly, Lily's face heated and turned an ambiguous red shade. James swung his head around to stare down at the girls, eyebrows wrinkling in confusion.

"What are you talking about, Sirius?" he queried.

"Blimey!" Sirius repeated, mouth gaping. His cries alerted Elizabeth, Angelina, and Emily to danger, and their heads darted up from their plates. Elizabeth and Emily raised matching eyebrows while Angelina tilted her head to the side, blinking furiously and staring at Lily. The girls had no idea why Sirius was so frantic, but he_ had_ said _Lily_'s last name…

Face glowing, Lily grabbed her bag and stormed out of the Great Hall without a look back at her best friends and the Marauders, sitting at the long Gryffindor table. A large majority of the upper year Ravenclaws had turned to watch her leave; Lily's brilliance for academics had given her friends throughout the other houses, but the heaviest concentration of Lily's friends and acquaintances outside of their brave Gryffindor Tower lay in the Ravenclaw House. All of the students admired her for her natural intelligence and her dedication to knowledge and many of the young men in the house had ventured to ask her to Hogsmeade on the numerous trips since 3rd year.

James' face turned from jovial into jealous as he watched one of her dates from the spring of the previous year wink at his mates, tug the napkin from his lap and drop it onto his empty plate, and follow Lily quickly out of the hall. Sirius patted his best mate on the back consolingly a few times with his right hand, grabbing the remains of his muffin and popping it into his mouth with his left. Peter hadn't bothered to look up and was busy trying to poke the yolk of his egg so it would break and soak his toast. Remus raised an eyebrow and looked at the Emily, Elizabeth, and Angelina.

The three girls looked at each other and sighed dramatically before rising from their places on the bench across from the boys and preparing themselves to comfort for the raging ball of fury that would be Lily Evans in Flitwick's early morning N.E.W.T level Charms classroom.

"Of course!" Angelina yelled before blushing and looking meek as a unanimous "Shhhhh" resounded from around her. "I mean, of course Lily's being odd today!"

"Like she isn't _every_ day," Elizabeth joked.

"No, Liz. _You're_ odd every day," Emily deadpanned, her eyebrows knitted together.

Laughing and sniggering at the bickering twins, the Marauders awaited more explanation from Angelina.

"Guys, come on. How long have you known Lily Evans?" Angelina asked, hands on her hips.

"The train! We met on the train, and she smiled, and I smiled, and she blushed, and I grinned, and she giggled, and I ruffled my hair-!"

"I think she means legitimately spoken with her, James," Remus interrupted, chuckling softly. "As in, you know what she likes-"

"Yelling at Prongs!" Peter interjected.

"What she dislikes-"

"Prongs being alive!" he yelled again.

Sirius let a barking laugh escape from between his lips and clapped Peter on the back heartily. Remus hid a smile and caught Angelina's brown eyes with his own champagne colored ones, making her flush almost to the color Lily's face had been moments before. James' face, torn between amusement and horror at having had Peter make a joke at his personal expense, was causing Emily and Elizabeth to snicker and giggle loudly as they pointed at his visage's conflict of interests.

Angelina felt a short tap on her shoulder and blinked, breaking her eye contact with Remus. Twirling on the spot, she spun around and came face to face with a blue and bronze crest adorning black robes. As she raised her eyes, Angelina began piecing together the Ravenclaw badge with the chiseled, slightly scruffy, chin and cheekbones and the deep dimples.

"Oh, hi," she breathed, smiling up at Bradley, the intensity of her blush increasing tenfold.

"Hey, Angelina."

"Have a nice breakfast?" Seriously, as if her heart racing while looking at Remus weren't bad enough, now it was trying to break the world record for the fastest lap around Hogwarts' grounds.

"Yeah, it was great. It is still a bit disconcerting to see all of the food appearing out of thin air, though." He smiled again. Angelina giggled. "I was…Well, I heard that Gryffindors have Charms class with us Ravenclaws…"

Angelina giggled again and let her lips curl back into a smile. He looked nervous, she realized.

"Well," she began, hesitantly, teasing him. "I do suppose I could show you to the classroom."

She picked up her bag from the floor behind the bench and slung it across her shoulder before beaming at the remaining Gryffindors and giving them a slight wave goodbye. Bradley's face melted into a relaxed, relieved expression and he held out his arm for her to take. Angelina laughed quietly as they walked the same path that Lily had taken several minutes before, her not-so-observant eyes missing Remus' frown, James' and Sirirus' raised eyebrows, Peter's blank stare, and Emily's and Elizabeth's dropped jaws.

"How was your Potions class yesterday? Are you excited for Charms?" Angelina asked once she and Bradley had made it into the bustling corridor.

He shrugged. "Both are alright, but I'm generally more of a Defense Against the Dark Arts kind of guy."

Angelina counted whatever blessings a great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson-grandnephew-grandwhateverkindofrelative of Merlin had given her that Bradley was not in her Defense class.

"Oh. Well. Flitwick's a great guy, though, so no worries there," she joked.

"I know."

"Uh, you do?"

"He _is_ my head of house, you know. He helped me get settled with the transfer and everything."

Angelina just about died under his teasing grin, and went back to thanking that great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson-grandnephew-grandwhateverkindofrelative of Merlin, for they were rather near to the first floor Charms classroom. Desperately wanting to prove herself worthy and capable of intelligent conversation to this new boy, Angelina decided to provide him with a rather interesting tidbit of Hogwarts information.

"Charms is the only class on the first floor."

Bradley's soft "Oh?" inspired her to continue.

"Mmhm. They moved it down here once Dumbledore gave Professor Flitwick the job. Apparently, his small size makes it rather difficult to get up and down the moving staircases."

"Interesting." Angelina beamed up at him. "But what did they do while he was a student here?"

She blinked, a frown coming across her face. _Drat! Why in Merlin's dirtiest robes did he have to be a curious, constantly seeking affirmation and never ceasing to desire knowledge Ravenclaw?_

"I, uh…"

"It's fine, Angelina. I was only teasing." His smirk quite nearly made her swoon and she suddenly remembered why they were walking arm in arm in the halls on the first floor just after breakfast.

"Here we are!" She grabbed his upper arm and pulled him back a few steps, walking into the classroom they had passed.

Professor Flitwick was bounding across the room, setting up art canvases on easels in front of every table. Angelina selected a table towards the front and bit her lip as Bradley sat down on the chair next to her. Squeaking and greeting and waving to all his students as they entered the classroom, Professor Flitwick fell off of his stool upon seeing the Lily Evans enter the room with Carson Peters, his house's top Charms student. Angelina and Remus, Sirius, and James, who had all swaggered in together without a word to Angelina, all let their jaws dropped as Flitwick called their attentions to Lily and Carson.

Brad nudged her in the side, asking what was going on.

"Oh. Carson Peters. He'd be wonderful for Lily…"

"Yeah? I don't know your Lily, but Carson's a pretty cool guy, one of my dorm mates." He smiled at Angelina again, and she returned it before they both faced forward and waited for Flitwick to begin his lesson.

"Good morning, students! Welcome to your seventh and final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!"

Flitwick's amiable greeting spawned raucous jubilation from the Marauders and good-natured cheering and clapping from the remaining students of the class. "I have no doubt that my fellow professors have already expressed the seriousness of N.E.W.T. exams, so I will not bore you with stern lecturing!" Angelina could have sworn James and Sirius had fainted with relief and joy. "We'll just dive right into a refreshing pool of charmwork!" And then she really did swear.

It was not that Angelina did not enjoy Charms, she just wished that Professor Flitwick might have decided a "refresher" to review their previous work was in order, rather than a headfirst plummeting into "refreshing charmwork".

"Now," Flitwick began, "I am unsure whether or not I should make an approximation of how many of you talented N.E.W.T. level students are familiar with Georges Seurat. However, you all will be experts on his artwork after today's lesson!"

Angelina let her eyes roam and glance at the other students. James and Sirius were talking, Remus looked mildly interested, as did Peter. Lily looked ready to squeal with excitement and even the twins looked excited. Glancing rather stealthily at Brad, she saw he was smiling as well. Was she the only person in the entire classroom who had no idea what the bloody hell Flitwick was going on about?

"Seurat was a particularly gifted wizard who completed his education at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, located in France. Impressionism inspired his creativity and his creative works became a pinnacle and important force in beginning the post-impressionist movement. Now, I would like to assume that many of you are curious as to why I am bringing up French wizards and art movements." The nodding heads of his students brought a smile to his face.

"Georges Seurat was an extraordinary student in Charms, and, with his boundless creativity, he combined two simple wand movements into his own means of creating artwork! By synthesizing a color changing charm with the jabbing motion used in provocative charmwork, Seurat developed a means of creating artwork of dots! He used the color charm to vary his hues while the jabbing motion allowed him to create precise points of ink! An entire style of painting is now named after him, _pointillisme_. The International Association of Brilliant Charms and Charming People, the organization in charge of charm regulation, coined his technique as the "Seurat Charm". Today, my lucky N.E.W.T pupils, we will fancy ourselves _des artists français _and learn the Seurat Charm!"

He punctuated his excitement with a loud clap, hopping off his chair and standing before an easel at his desk. Every student stood up and rushed forward, hoping to see the charm in action. Angelina watched, eyes wide, as he spoke "_coulourithis_" and he turned to face the class. As he showed them his wand, he deliberately pointed out the very tip of his short wand.

"After speaking the color charm, the tip of your wand will turn a specific color based upon your desires. You can merely think a hue or an intensity of a hue, and it will appear."

The class watched with wide eyes as Professor Flitwick made the tip of his sturdy oak wand change from red, to orange, to yellow, to green, to blue, to indigo, and to violet. Then, his large smile taking up half the space on his small visage, he demonstrated the sharp jabbing motion, having once more turned his wand to his easel. A small point of color appeared on the clean sheet of parchment. He continued jabbing and soon had created a scene of stick figures in large pointy hats holding wands, different colored sparks shooting from them. The Charms students clapped uproariously for his work and he waved them off, shooing them to go back to their seats and begin working.

The rest of the double period was spent in good fun. Angelina laughed hysterically as Bradley tried to paint a purple hippopotamus to rival her own orange one. James and Sirius were both doing (and absolutely butchering) self-portraits in an attempt to show off for Emily and Elizabeth, who had chosen to draw each other. Peter succeeded in using the charm to great effect and had a lovely painting of a bunch of grapes by the end of the period. Remus spent his time _pointillisme_'ing a snapshot of the Hogwarts Grounds by night. Every student's attempt had paled in comparison to Lily's: Lily absolutely gushed and glowed because of the praise she received from both Carson Peters and Professor Flitwick upon her amateur completion of _Un dimanche après-midi à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, _a remake of Seurat's most famous work.

When she had finished arguing with Bradley over whose hippopotamus was more realistic - he had won - and bid him farewell as she wandered up to the Gryffindor Common Room before lunch and a free afternoon, Angelina realized why Lily had been so excited in the morning : Lily had absolutely adore Charms for six years, and she certainly had to have been looking forward to the N.E.W.T year of the class. And now, after spending such a charming morning with Bradley in Charms, Angelina thought that maybe she was certainly looking forward to the N.E.W.T. year of the class as well.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Emily's Exceptional Lung Capacities and a Reminiscence of James' First Real Case of Pompous Ass-ery**

"That is absolute _blasphemy_, Emily."

Emily didn't even look up from her plate and over two places to the left and across the Gryffindor Table, currently spread with a delightfully delicious display of different delicacies for the lunchtime meal, to meet Sirius' horrified look: the twin had mastered the art of rolling her eyes without even looking at the person to whom she directed the insulting act. The degree of disgust in Sirius' voice when he spoke did, however, inspire Angelina to turn and look at him. When she did, she nearly snorted and choked on her green beans.

Sirius Black was leaning back from the bench, about to stand upright and shove the entire bench backwards, which would, in turn, topple the rest of the Gryffindor students on his bench. His right hand was extended out rigidly, shaking with the tight fury of his muscles, pointing towards Emily's section of the table, while his left hand flew to his dropped jaw. Angelina noted that his eyes were focused and glowering at Emily's plate of food.

"You – you – you let her _do_ that?" Sirius asked, horrified.

"No need to sound so ab_horr_ed, Black," Elizabeth replied to his question, placing a rather particular emphasis on the second syllable of her choice word. "She's done it since she was a little baby and continued when we were little kids growing up. My sister is more than welcome to continue do-!"

"At home, Liz? You let her learn to do that at _home_?" Sirius let out a pained gasp as Angelina raised an eyebrow. Honestly, did he need to emphasize something every time he spoke? "That is _appalling_!" Apparently so.

Angelina eyed Emily's plate and found it difficult to understand Sirius' bewilderment. Some freshly steamed broccoli, delicious house-elf-made macaroni and cheese that would hold the student body's cravings for the dish over until the next time it was served. _Ah! _Angelina realized, suddenly. There, piled on top of Emily's heaping helping of mouth-watering macaroni and cheese, was a large squirt of ruby red ketchup. James leaned around Peter's body to check out all the commotion and gasped deeply, drawing the attention of the entire Gryffindor Table towards Emily's plate.

"What's the big deal?" Emily asked, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion.

"What's the big deal?" Peter repeated, outraged. "What's the big deal? Remus!" Remus looked away from Angelina to stare dubiously at Peter. "Tell her what the big deal is!"

Noticing Remus' exasperated sigh, Angelina hid a small grin. "On behalf of Sirius, James, and Peter, my best friends and dorm mates, I thoroughly enjoy informing you three lovely ladies-"

"And the rest of the Gryffindor House present at our table today," Angelina cut in, grinning at Remus' manner of beleaguered explanation. "Your best friends and dorm mates seem to have attracted many curious housemates!" Gesturing with her hands to the rest of the table, Angelina found a tiny smirk on her lips. The color was draining from poor Remus' face as he glanced around with his jaw slightly slack. When he saw the rest of the house staring at him, eyes judging and stomachs hungry, his mouth tightened noticeably.

Teasing Remus about his friends was enjoyable, Angelina decided. _The way his pale face goes pink around the hollows of his cheeks, and his large mouth tightens in embarrassment is kind of cute, really…_

Coughing uncomfortably, Remus pushed onward with his explanation. "My comrades find Emily Marquis' use of a condiment on Hogwart's Finest Macaroni and Cheese to be utterly appalling." He paused and listened as Sirius whispered frantically in his ear, which his shaggy blond hair covered. "And," he fake glared at his friends, "_we_, the _four_ of us, believe that the use of ketchup on macaroni and cheese masks both the appetizing scent of the dish as well as the scrumptious taste."

After his brisk nod, Peter and James clapped each other on the back, Sirius smirked rather smugly, Emily and Elizabeth sighed and went back to eating their lunches, and the rest of the Gryffindor table did much the same as the twins, with the exception of Angelina, for Angelina had suddenly gotten distracted and was staring into a haze of golden rod and green.

She was running through a field of golden wheat, swaying in the same warm breeze which was puffing her audacious red summer dress up in a flirty manner. Her feet were bare as she began skipping, twirling and spinning, suddenly surrounded by daisies. Angelina was past the field and into a dark green forest, deep and inviting. Crouching down, she rubbed her fingertips against the soft moss, enjoying the sensation: supple and half-way between firm and squishy. She stuck out her foot and tentatively pressed the ball of her foot down on the moss, quickly stepping forward and following the mossy trail. Angelina was feeling alive, curious about life here in the forest. The color of the wheat field had been divine, and the background of shadowy green leaves complimented so well...

Someone was calling her name. "Angelina," it whispered.

She moved deeper into the forest until she came to a clearing. "Angelina," it said.

There stood a man, his cream colored shirt light and his slacks a darker shade of beige. "Angelina!" it demanded.

She smiled and hurried forward towards the man's open arms, catching a soft aroma of acorns and leaves. "Angelina!" Sirius shouted.

_Wait__**. Sirius**__ shouted?_

Angelina blinked and found herself still sitting at the Gryffindor table. Her plate of chicken, green beans, and macaroni and cheese still lay before her on the wooden top. Looking around, she immediately noticed the smirks on the faces of James, Emily, and Elizabeth. _What in the world is going on,_ she wondered. Sirius' mouth still had not closed, it appeared. And why was Peter gawking at her like that?

Hoping to find something telling in Remus' face, Angelina looked towards him. His flushed cheeks and downcast eyes were certainly telling her something, but what?

"And _Merlin,_ she actually _denies _it!" James was absolutely shell-shocked, gesturing wildly in conversation with Emily, both of them around the corner and behind a statue of Googleheim the Googlest.

"I know, James," Emily conceded, sighing and frowning at the young man.

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

"Pardon _me_, Potter," she spat, suddenly affronted, "but what exactly are you suggesting?"

"Well, she's _your _friend…"

"How very observant of you. So you're suggesting that I encourage them, push them along into realizing their feelings? Yes? Right, well…Potter, what would you directly suggest to me? That I go up to a girl who has been one of my closest friends since 1st Year and say, 'Hey, why don't you go put on some lipstick, mascara, my hot pink pumps, and your favorite water bra and then go slag around with one of the smartest, cutest, and yet most reserved boys in 7th year so that he'll notice how absolutely _gorgeous_ you are, comprehend that your to-die-for looks go hand in hand with your to-die-for personality, realize that he's been completely and intensely in love with you since _forever, _ask you to the next Hogsmeade weekend, which is what you've been subconsciously desiring for _ages_, so naturally you'll accept because his advancements will make you have an epiphany regarding your own feelings which will make the date all you both have ever wanted and _more,_ and, after which, you'll both have fallen _so _irrevocably in love with each other all over again that you and he will set the date for your extravagant and exquisite wedding ceremony for shortly after our graduation this summer, which is, of course, the first step in creating your perfect life together!'"

James stared at Emily, watching her gasp. James hadn't completely comprehended and considered what she had just rambled for a full thirty seven and a half seconds, but he had indeed grasped the idea that Emily must have been a muggle-magician's assistant, the kind that get locked into large tanks of water and must escape, despite the chains. That could have been the only possible explanation for her superior ability to not inhale during such an expulsion of breath, excitement, and sarcasm.

"Wow," he muttered, his wide eyes glazed over with astonishment, "Emily, I-"

"Hello, mates!" Angelina exclaimed, popping around the corner and slamming her hand down on James' shoulder and over exaggeratedly winking at Emily. "Hitting on Emily now, James? Tut, tut. You are one wild man! No wonder Lily secretly fantasizes about you!" She winked again, this time at James, who stood flabbergasted, his mouth gaping, as Angelina giggled and laced her fingers through those of a thoroughly confused Emily Marquis and dragged her off in the direction from which she had just come.

Emily blinked repeatedly as she realized that Angelina's demeanor had completely changed once she was out of James Potter's line of sight. She watched as Angelina's steps seemed less angry but more frantic, and felt Angelina's grasp on her own hand loosen slightly though it still tugged her along. After being led through three quarters of the full length of the Hall of Humbaba the Horrible, Emily "Hmph!"'d quite loudly and tore her hand out of Angelina's.

"What is going on?" She asked, frowning at Angelina.

Hiding a smile as she noticed the most adorable little furrowed brows knit together on her friend's forehead, Angelina sighed. "Guess."

"Purple."

"…Pardon?"

"Elizabeth told me that 'purple' is an exemplary answer for most awkward questions or suggestions, and I wanted to try it out," Emily explained, smiling guiltily.

"Regardless," Angelina started, "guess. I'll give you a hint. It's one word."

"Purple? Oh don't look at me like that," Emily laughed, her blue eyes crinkly as she smiled, "I was only kidding. Just tell me."

"Séance."

That was all that needed to be said. One word. One meaning to four girls living in the 7th year dormitory of Gryffindor Tower.

Since their very first year at Hogwarts, Angelina, Elizabeth, Emily and Lily had been the best of friends. Angelina distinctly remembered the event which led to the first emotional gathering they had had: Lily's realization that James Potter was a pompous ass and she wanted nothing to do with him for the rest of her years at school.

For Angelina, fourth year had begun just as any other year would have commenced: full of excited squealings, great hall welcome-back feastings, the hustle and bustle of learning the best possible route to classes, fearing having double potions on a Monday morning or a Friday afternoon, wondering if Gryffindor could pull off another house cup championship or if the award would be lost to the sneaky, slimy Slytherins. Quite the usual, indeed!

For Lily Evans, fourth year had begun quite terribly: not only had she gotten into a gargantuan argument with Petunia in front of all of her personal friends _and _the young Marauders, but James Potter had managed to send her spiraling into extreme confusion with just a few chosen words.

"Lily?" He had queried, smiling down at her. The Marauders had taken what would become their signature pose of the year: James, tall and always smiling, resting his elbow on Peter's broad shoulders, as he was the shortest still and rather stoutly built; Sirius smirking in a rather sultry manner with his hands stuffed in his pockets (perfectly placed so as to allow his thumbs to hook out and his hands to lay flat against his quad muscles in his leg) as he stood flanked Peter on the opposite side of James; Remus towering over everyone after an extreme growth spurt , but remaining mysterious and aloof as he situated himself behind his three friends, usually off to the left side.

"How can I help you, James?" She had looked towards him, tapping her foot impatiently against the floor of Platform 9 3/4. Emily and Elizabeth flanking either side of Lily, their arms crossed, wearing both twin outfits (a red sundress which happened to look absolutely smashing on Emily, and left a little something to be desired on Elizabeth) as well as twin looks of expectation, staring and sizing up James, Peter, Sirius, and Remus. Angelina standing slightly behind them, blinking slowly and counting to thirteen in French, and then to three in German, and then to ten in English, and then to thirteen over again, as that happened to be her limited knowledge of numbers in both foreign languages and the least tedious way of avoiding counting past ten in English when she had to be in situations like these, anticipating the end of the soon-to-be confrontation.

He had frowned, immediately noticing her rather snippy tone and, following through with the actions of ninety nine percent of adolescent and teenage boys throughout the wizarding world and muggle world, choosing to continue on with his plan despite the realization that the young girl was simply not in the mood for much conversation. "Come up to our room promptly at eleven this very evening."

Lily's eyebrows had shot upwards like rockets, straight into the flaming color of the fringe covering her forehead. Sirius, Peter, and Remus had smiled wickedly as Emily and Elizabeth had let their mouths drop. Attempting-to-be-ambivalent Angelina had accidentally counted all the way to fifteen in French before realizing that "quinze" was not "treize" and something was terribly wrong.

Her mouth working frantically, Lily desperately tried to think of something to say and to respond promptly and wittily in order to get James Potter to close his disgusting trap. She hadn't succeeded after five awkwardly intense and intensely awkward seconds, and so, the Marauders fluidly high-fived each other and walked onto the train, one after another.

The girls had followed them onto the train shortly after Lily was able to move more than her lips and keep up with the conscious effort that was the walking and stepping of her friends. Emily and Elizabeth had caught the sight of the back of Remus' robes entering the very last compartment on the right side of the aisle and pointed out the movement to Lily and Angelina. Immediately following, the four girls had found themselves seated in an empty compartment. An empty compartment that happened to be the compartment closest to the front of the train on the left side of the aisle.

Every person in the Great Hall had known that Lily was frazzled throughout the entire welcome back feast that night; Angelina distinctly remembered Lily's eyes having been glazed over even while Headmaster Dumbledore spoke about the new plans for the coming school year and the ever-present rules. The Gryffindors had studied her from afar and had asked about her health once the entire house made it back to the common room after the annual repast. Angelina, Elizabeth, Emily, and Lily had been sitting in chairs around a square table when the clock struck 11. Moving quickly and then stopping to wait at the bottom of the staircase, James Potter had stared at Lily with his gorgeous caramel colored eyes.

The three girls had watched as Lily slowly rose from her chair, walked over to James, and followed him up to the 4th Year Boys Dormitory. Shock passed quickly and they pounded up the steps to the 4th Year Girls Dormitory, awaiting Lily's arrival.

They didn't have to wait very long.

Lily had barged into their shared room, tears streaming down her red face. Between the hysterical cries and heavy breathing she could not seem to leave behind, Lily had managed to explain to the girls that James had led her up to the boys dorm without a word. He had led her inside and sat next to her on his very own, messy bed. Apparently, James had moved his face towards hers and, though she had been blushing and closing her eyes as he leaned closer, she happened to see a person standing in the doorway: Dorothea Wullpas. Frustrated, Lily had jumped off of the bed and accosted James. He seemed confused, she had said, and asked why she thought he wanted her in the room. Feeling as though something extremely important were about to happen, Lily had told him she didn't really know why she had followed him up to the disgusting, smelly room. Dorothea had coughed daintily and James had smiled warmly at her, inviting her closer with the same breath that he expelled to tell Lily that the only reason he had brought her upstairs was to help Dorothea understand the theory behind Doppelganger Delirium potions, a subject about which the 4th years had been notified they would need to write extensively on the first day of their Potions class of 4th year. After staring at James in a much aghast manner, Lily had turned to go. James, panicking, had reached for her and managed to brush his hand across her curved behind. Dorothea's mocking laughter amplifying her mortification, Lily had spun 'round on her heel and glowered at James when he called out her name, her face reddening at an exponential rate.

"Lily, I only asked you up," he had begun frantically as she stared up at him expectantly, "because you're the nerdiest girl in all of Hogwarts! If _you_ can't teach her, how could anyone else? I mean, we all _try _at school, and _try_ to study, but the rest of us have other things to do, and have friends and girlfriends to see, you know?" That had been his reasoning. That had been it.

Lily's heart had shattered into a thousand little pieces at his words; she had slapped him hard across his wonderfully sculpted face and ran out of the room. The tears had come immediately and so did the red blotchiness of her face. That's when she had made it back to her three best friends.

After hearing the story, Elizabeth smirked and nodded at Emily, who grabbed a large bound book from her just assembled bookshelf.

Five minutes later, the foursome had formed a circle, all sitting Indian-style, on the floor of their dormitory and had begun their first séance.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: A Modern Spin on the Ritualistic Seance for Four Witches**

At Angelina's response, Emily let a smile dance across her thin lips. Walking together up to the Gryffindor Tower, Angelina could have sworn she noticed a bit of a bounce in her dear friend's step. As she shook her head and smiled, Angelina suddenly caught a familiar scent, one of spices and leaves and the crispness of autumn turning into winter.

James, Sirius, and Peter all dashed past the two girls with shouted greetings and continued on their mutual path down to the Quidditch field. Sirius was attempting to stick his broom between his legs and fly through the corridors of the school, which was causing Peter and James to keep nudging him and bumping him "accidentally" the closer he got, and the more frustrated he became. Laughing once their forms had disappeared behind them and began down the stairs, Angelina and Emily kept walking towards the portrait of the Fat Lady, an amateur opera singer whose form was draped in pink silk and chiffon twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. Remus appeared to be walking past Emily and Angelina without noticing them until he made a brusque stop and grabbed Angelina's hand.

It made her feel small, having her hand in his. Remus' hands were so large, his fingers so long, and the skin so rough, so warm. Even though they were clasped loosely, Angelina felt herself begin to smile and to blush.

"Hello, Angelina," he said.

"Hello, Remus," she replied.

Then he dropped her hand and dashed off down the hall, down the steps, and most likely out of the front door to go watch his friends goof around on broomsticks and take up valuable time on the Quidditch Pitch.

Angelina blinked and looked at Emily. Emily raised an eyebrow as the left side of her mouth quirked upwards.

"My dearest Angelina," Emily began, "what in the world was that about?"

"Quiet. Upstairs."

They had made it inside the Gryffindor Common Room, only to discover it was overrun by underclassmen: first years in hysterics over having gotten lost already, second years laughing at the first years for their having gotten lost, third years making snide remarks about how cool the second years thought they now were, fourth years maintaining their isolated and controlled mind-sets instead of mocking the third years who thought _they_ were so cool now, fifth years absolutely mortified at the seriousness of their O.W.L year, sixth years breathing a sigh of relief at their ability to breathe for a year without major testing. Merlin knows where the seventh years were besides Emily and Angelina, who were tearing through the room and up the stairs to their dormitory.

Bursting into the room, the girls saw Elizabeth hopping on one foot at the side of her bed as she pulled on her penguin pajama pants and Lily already sitting anxiously on the floor in her teal nightgown. Emily let out a squeal, scampered over to her bed, and quickly tore off of her uniform, leaving articles of clothing spread across her unmade bed. Flicking the lock shut, Angelina smiled.

As the other three girls waited in the middle of the floor, Angelina shrugged out of her mandatory uniform and slipped into her dark purple slip. She completed their rather square circle, placed her wand in front of her crossed legs, and then promptly picked it up again, flicking it at the windows and magically closing the curtains, setting the ambiance for their sacred séance.

Lily was waving her own swishy willow wand, lighting the crooked, red wax candles as Elizabeth placed them on two opposite sides of the glass bowl sitting in the center of their bodies. Emily had summoned the bowl, filled it with oil, and added a drop of newt saliva before placing it on the floor.

With a soft, "Accio, History of Magic!", Angelina summoned the great text and caught it within her open hands, nearly falling over with the unexpected force of the spell's pulling the book towards her. Sitting upright once more, Angelina opened the historically accurate recounting of anything and everything magical in the past few millennia to page five hundred and twenty one before placing it in front of herself. On the opened crease of the wondrous literature, Angelina placed one of Elizabeth's large, plastic diamond rings (a very in-demand fashion accessory from their 5th year) and looked directly across their set up to see Lily's emerald eyes sparkling with excitement. As they smiled at each other, Elizabeth and Emily summoned a set of sleigh bells, and a soup spoon and a heap of fine confectioner's sugar, respectively. The newly summoned items remained outside of their square for protective purposes: mainly, Elizabeth hoped to chuck a moderately hefty set of sleigh bells at the feet of any 7th year girls' dorm room intruders and Emily believed that positioning the spoon and the pile of sugar behind her, she would be much more easily able to begin flinging sugar into the eyes of any 7th year girls' dorm room intruders.

The girls silently moved closer together in their particularly angular circle so that both knees of each girl touched a knee of either girl beside her. Each girl placed her hands onto her folded legs, resting the hands with the palms up on her knees. Each girl looked to one another for confirmation. Lily looked towards Emily, Emily looked towards Angelina, Angelina looked towards Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked towards Lily. Lily smiled and closed her eyes. Upon these movements, each girl closed smiled, closed her eyes, and adjusted her dainty hands slightly, for it was necessary that each pinky finger touch the pinky finger of another girl.

Thus, the séance began.

Within fifteen minutes, the girls were laying on their stomachs, completely relaxed as they gossiped and giggled.

"I cannot _believe_ you, Elizabeth Marquis!" Emily squealed, using both of her hands to reach a Chocolate Frog and clamp onto it tightly as it desperately sought to escape her grasp. "You just flat out dragged Adam into a broom closet and started to -!"

"No, my dear sister," Elizabeth calmly interrupted, face serene. Her left eye snapped open, in an odd sort of wink. "_He_ dragged _me._ The whole incident was much more romantic than you're making it out to be! I mean, it started in the Great Hall. I could feel someone watching me the whole time. Eyes on my back, yeah?" Angelina had realized the common mannerism of throwing on a "yeah?" at the end of perfectly standard statements was a habit of both twins, and she had never had the distinct curiosity to discover the true creator.

Lily smiled devilishly at Angelina as the latter rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Liz, I can just imagine it now!" Lily sometimes did have a flair for the dramatic, and her breathy voice throughout her introduction tipped off Angelina to the fact that Lily was about to adapt her most rare, yet most enjoyable persona. _Here comes Lolita_, Angelina thought, hiding a smile and choosing to bite down into a deliciously ripe chunk of pineapple.

Lily, perhaps because of her novel-reading as a child, had developed these different…personalities. But her friends feared not, for Lily was completely mentally and emotionally stable - or at least as completely mentally and emotionally stable as a seventeen year old girl could ever be. There were, however, many facets to the complicated intricacies which encompassed the red-headed teenage girl's overall entity.

Lillian, an extremely rigid young lady, exemplified the witch's strong sense of duty and responsibility. Quite simply, Lillian was Lily's Head Girl persona. Her knack for organizing activities and scolding James Potter and other ne'er-do-wells left her in good standing with the middle-aged and quite grouchy Argus Filch. Many times, Angelina posited that that "jolly-romper" Argus had the hots for sweet Lily, before she found it necessary to correct herself. Ardent Argus really wanted to shag proper Lillian, not sweet Ingrid. The part of Lily which felt it necessary to maintain a birthday committee for the Gryffindor House and kindly ask each student in said house to send happy wishes on little notes for the person whose birthday it was on any given day; the part of Lily which believed that, in line with muggle practices, a professor should be given a shiny red apple, perfect enough for even Snow White, on appreciation days and at the beginning and the end of the school years - that was Ingrid. Yvette was the second most domineering facet of Lily's integrated personality, following Lillian, for Yvette inspired Lily's dedication to knowledge and her overwhelming perfectionism. A single professor who did not admire and cherish Yvette could not be found within the bounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! And lastly, perhaps most unexpectedly, Lily revered most of all the part of her mind which was Lolita. Lolita had punched James back in second year. Lolita had kissed Tanner Donegal under some mistletoe at a pre-holiday party back in third year. Lolita had danced around in sexy lingerie with her three best friends whenever a séance was necessary from fourth year until this point. The actual culmination of all four personalities was a quite nice integration named Lily (Coincidentally, Angelina later noted after many hours of contemplation and consideration, each contributing piece of Lily's personality had been named, whether deliberately or arbitrarily, to form an acronym of Lily's name: Lillian Ingrid Lolita Yvette. The human mind's subconscious ability to categorize and organize and construct was simply _amazing_!).

And now, Lolita began to take control of Lily (perhaps L.I.L.Y?) for several minutes.

"So," she began again, "What you are indeed saying, Lizzie-dear, is that you had noticed Adam sneaking glances all through dinner. He tried to hide it from his friends, he didn't want them to be suspicious of him looking at such a becoming young lady! Then, you dug into your pocket and felt the note which he had sent you during History of Magic after our luncheon incident regarding macaroni and cheese."

"And ketchup!" Emily kindly added, smiling sweetly at her twin sister.

Lolita-dominated-Lily pursed her lips and raised her eyebrows, waiting to continue her description of the romantic scene. "The note, scrawled hastily and yet tenderly, stated to meet Adam Wilcox by the front doors at exactly six fifteen in the evening. Smiling coyly, you stood and left your seat on the Gryffindor bench, walking towards the designated meeting place at exactly the designated time."

While Lily took a breather, Angelina bit back a round of giggles. Their gatherings were the best, really. The female camaraderie struck Angelina as the best sort of comfort, warm and inviting. _Better than nutella, even! Imagine that! _

"Following your slow walk to the entrance of this esteemed school, Adam met you with a wide smile, his dimples obvious. He gazed into your eyes, told you how beautiful you were. His fingertips touched your face gently, and you thought, 'I'm in love!'…"

The three listeners sighed simultaneously, collectively creating the sound of one large, swooning expulsion of carbon dioxide and water molecules.

"Then, he leaned closer, letting his breath caress your lips as your eyes closed in anticipation. He took your hands in his own, bringing you tenderly into a small, cozy room."

Angelina's eyes flicked over to Elizabeth who was laying on her stomach with her feet raised and crossed, bouncing lightly in the air.

"And, finally, he kicked the door closed to the dirty broom closet and snogged you senseless! Oof!"

Lily had been taken by surprise mid cackle as Elizabeth hurled a pillow at her. The sheer force with which Elizabeth had thrown the pillow knocked Lily over backwards. Righting herself, Lily chucked it back at Elizabeth, who caught it and, so overwhelmed with laughter was she, threw it straight into Angelina's face.

Letting out a frustrated grunt, Angelina jumped to her feet and grabbed her pillows, heavily chucking them at both Lily and Elizabeth. Lily, horrified, immediately sought the upper hand and began charming the pillows now scattered throughout the dorm. As pillows flew through the air, Angelina screamed and fell into a fetal position on the floor, Emily hid behind her bed, and Elizabeth dashed into the bathroom. In result, 99.9% of the pillows hammered into Angelina who lay on the ground, torn between laughing and crying.

"Stop! Mercy! Mercy, Lily!" She called.

"I have conditions," Lily sang teasingly. The pillows had formed a revolving circle, each one smacking Angelina and then moving to the back of the line. Lily's calm wrist flicks controlled their actions.

"Anything, master, _anything_!" Angelina played along.

"Spill. About Remus. _And_ Bradley," the red-headed witch emphasized.

"Deal! Just stop the agony!"

Within moments, the pillows swooshed across the dormitory to each respective owner's bed looking properly fluffed, Emily crawled out from behind her bed and sat very close to Angelina (perhaps too close), Elizabeth flung the door to the washroom open and returned, dropping to her knees in front of the glass bowl still resting on the cream colored carpet, and Lily smirked as she folded herself gracefully into a relaxed position next to Elizabeth and across from Angelina and Emily, reclining on her elbows.

"Well then," Angelina said blankly, blinking at the sudden change of atmosphere and the distinct focus of attention pressing upon her. "Who first?"

"Remus," her three friends chorused.

"…Why so unanimous?"

Lily shrugged while Elizabeth and Emily tried their best to appear innocent.

Angelina closed her eyes resignedly, breathing deeply through her nose. Then, she exhaled.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: The List of Twenty-One, Contemplation, and the Chaos which Ensues**

"So. Remus."

Her three friends nodded anxiously.

"So."

Her three friends nodded anxiously.

"Remus."

Her three friends nodded anxiously.

"So."

Her three friends nodded anxiously.

"Re- OUCH."

Elizabeth beamed at her pleasantly, putting down her wand.

"Bloody! That hurt, Liz."

"Please continue, friend,"

"So."

"Angelina, I swear to Merlin that if you start this again, I will absolutely pummel you."

"Reeeee…mus is a nice boy and he's very kind and he likes chocolate and I like nice boys and I like kind people and I like chocolate and I like people who like chocolate, so this seems quite reasonable!?" Her voice rose at the end of her exasperated words.

Her three friends nodded anxiously.

_Kill me. _Angelina thought. _They can't even take a __**joke**__._

"Okay, here's the deal. Crumplant's a right old cabbage, and when everyone left after the awful class ended, Remus wanted to ascertain whether or not I was mentally, emotionally, and/or physically healthy, right? So he opened the door for me, and offered to walk me down to dinner. And, if you remember correctly, I already explained this to you three at dinner."

"You think we pay attention during eatin' time?!"

The room met Emily's comment with silence. Complete and utter silence.

"Go on," she amended, blushing maroon.

"Outside of that, I fell asleep in the common room yesterday, I guess. Remus woke me up. We hugged." They didn't need those strange details about the butterflies, did they? _Of course not_, Angelina decided. "I went to bed. When Emily and I were walking up here, we saw the boys go by and Remus stopped to say hi-"

"And he held her hand!" Emily exclaimed, much to the excitement of Elizabeth and Lolita-Lily.

"For just a moment, and then we made it up here. The end."

"And Brad?" Elizabeth asked, smile plastered on her face with her eyes looking towards Angelina eagerly.

"Err, I met Brad…several days ago when he sat next to me in History of Magic, and made a complete arse of myself when I tried to be helpful and show him to Potions. He showed up to ask me how to get to Charms, where I proceeded to make an arse of myself a second time, and then we spent the class doing that pointillism nonsense. The end."

"So who do you like more?"

"…Are you joking?" Angelina's eyes bulged.

"What do you mean?" Elizabeth asked, completely affronted.

"Well, how in Merlin's snogging shoes' names can you expect me to favor one of them when I barely know either of them!"

"Didn't you _talk_ to Bradley?"

"Yeah, Emily's right, Angelina! You sat next to him for _two whole _class sections and never spoke to him?"

"I talked to him, sure. I can't base a relationship with him off of less than two days' interactions!"

"Well, you know Remus!"

Lily's comment was met with two chorused "Yeah!"s from the twins.

"I probably couldn't tell you three things about him, Lily."

"Come on, I hate James and I'm sure I could tell you a bunch of things about him."

"Go for it."

"Well, fine! Number one: he's a pompous ass. Number two: he likes to show off. Number three: he's conceited."

"Lily, those definitely do not count."

"What are you talking about, Angelina?"

"You listed judgments, not actual facts! You probably couldn't tell me anything about his family life or his likes or dislikes…"

"She's right!" Emily added. "In order to agree to begin dating a boy, you must know his middle name, favorite color, and birthday. Without those three facts, it's immoral."

"…That's immorality? Goodness, what would I have done if I had immorally agreed to date someone without knowing those three things! I'd be a right harlot!"

"Sarcasm isn't appreciated, Angelina. You've gone and upset Emily," Elizabeth reprimanded.

"So," Lily began, trying to boost everyone's spirits, "Basically, you need to find out these details from both Brad and Remus, and then you can date!"

"I don't want a boyfriend."

Silence. Complete and utter silence. That really nasty kind of silence that makes every person in the general vicinity feel quite awkward as they start mentally blaming the person who caused the silence and the person who caused the silence starts mentally panicking over having caused the silence. The mental panic that started pressing down upon Angelina, suffocating her. She couldn't breathe, her world was spinning, her eyes were rolling upwards -

Angelina peeked open one eye. They were all staring at her, eyebrows raised.

Okay. So maybe she over-exaggerated the entire thing about the inability to breathe, the spinning world, and the rolling eyes…but there's nothing wrong with being hyperbolic, right? It added a little spice to life, and everyone loves a spicy person!

Right?

"Quel drame…"

"You're a slag, Lily."

"Uncalled for. Just because you can't handle your emotions well enough to have a civil conversation with us-"

"Lily, that was brilliant! Point number one: I can't handle my emotions…"

Shortly after, Elizabeth summoned the parchment, Emily summoned the ink, Angelina had summoned the quill. They quickly handed everything over to Lily, who had the prettiest script of them all. Within an hour, the four girls had brainstormed, compiled, and recorded a list of twenty one reasons why Angelina did not want and could not have a boyfriend during her seventh year at Hogwarts.

"I think we've got it all," Lily claimed, sucking on the end of the sugar quill Angelina had summoned after writing down the last rationale which Angelina had dictated.

Angelina, having been pacing in her long-winded dictations, quickly dropped to her knees and snatched up the parchment from in front of Lily, letting her eyes read over it.

_**An Extensive and Comprehensive List of Accurate and Important Incentives for Angelina Zemira Divine to Remain Single and Unattached Throughout Her Seventh and Final Year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (AECLAIIAZDRSUTHSFYHSWW):**_

_**1. Angelina has little to no control over her emotions as she is a highly hormonal and angst-ridden sixteen year old girl.**_

_**2. Angelina will soon be a seventeen year old girl with little to no control over her emotions which stem from her highly fluctuating hormone levels and ever-present angst.**_

_**3. Angelina can freely daydream and/or fantasize about any boy of her choosing without feeling the overwhelming guilt which would overtake her body, mind, and soul if she were in an official relationship with a specific boy and happened to have a short lull in faith, loyalty, and/or devotion which would cause her to think of another.**_

_**4. Angelina, being the immoral slut that she is, remains free to whore around with whomever she chooses, regardless of an extensive background check or mandatory knowledge of middle name, favorite color, and birthday.**_

_**5. Angelina feels that, despite any specifically insulting rules which Emily created, she would be quite anxious about other people's opinions and reactions regarding any relationships in which she herself took part.**_

_**6. Angelina likes being friendly and fears malicious gossip from jealous sneaky Slytherins, haughty Hufflepuffs, and raucous Ravenclaws, because gossip tends to ruin even the best of relationships.**_

_**7. Angelina believes the best of relationships won't ever exist in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, unless Lily Evans and James Potter set a new precedent of enemies turned lov-----**_

_**8. Angelina does not believe she has the required levels of passion in order to be a lover instead of a friend, for her passion surely cannot rival that of the lovely Lily Evans.**_

_**9. Angelina has trust issues, especially in those times when she cannot trust in her best friends' loyalty to remain unbiased and for her dictations to be taken down word for word, so she certainly could not trust a young wizard with her angst-y teenage heart.**_

_**10. Angelina kind of disagrees with the old adage "It is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all", and believes that hurting sucks and if she already worries and cries a lot due to her raging hormones even without a boyfriend, the hormone-induced emotional and mental torture of constantly worrying if he likes someone else, if he's happy with her, if he daydreams of other girls like she might daydream of other boys, might result in incessant crying and far too much runny mascara for her liking.**_

_**11. Angelina has problems "just saying no", which could result in a potential problem regarding deflowering.**_

_**12. Angelina does not, however, have problems with blunt, sometimes disgusting honesty in the presence of others, apparently, which could result in a boyfriend with hurt feelings.**_

_**13. Angelina believes that injured feelings must be mended as soon as possible, and gifts often do the trick, so a boyfriend could effect lots of present-buying on the part of Angelina.**_

_**14. Angelina takes pride in her own frugality, and thus, will be much happier to avoid buying gifts for a significant other in addition to two parents and three best friends.**_

_**15. Angelina shops in Hogsmeade ninety-nine point five percent of the time she ever shops, and a boyfriend would feel obligated to accompany her on her Hogsmeade outings, presenting a problem if she ever had to buy him a gift, which she would.**_

_**16. Angelina would feel obligated to compare schedules and spend as much time as possible with a boyfriend as they might not share classes, and certainly do not share dormitories.**_

_**17. Angelina does not anticipate having a boy sneaking out of his class several minutes early every day in order to accompany her wherever she may choose.**_

_**18. Angelina fears having to spend all free time with a boyfriend, including obligatory side-by-side seating at all meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in the Great Hall, instead of splitting her free time with her three gorgeous and brilliant best friends and her extensive amount of homework.**_

_**19. Angelina will kill herself brutally if she does not do well on her Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (N.E.).**_

_**20. Angelina, after dictating ninety-five percent of this list, has thus proven her point about the difficulties and complexities involving teenage relationships.**_

_**21. Angelina is a simple girl, and would prefer to remain simple for the rest of her time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, because only Merlin could know what will happen to complicate her life after graduation. **_

Angelina smiled ruefully. Graduation. It seemed so far away, a whole ten months until June, and the last ride home on the Hogwarts express. In ten months, a baby conceived this instant would be born and already a month old, gaining control of its muscles and preparing itself to start smiling. And smiling babies are just so cute, really. Angelina remembered with fondness the pictures she had seen of herself as a baby; she had been so happy, so care-free, often adorned in big hats, and always smiling to show all of her tiny white teeth, even when one or two may have been missing. In ten months, it would be the year 1977. What would happen to those three girls who had been her closest friends since the autumn of 1969? What would happen to the rest of the students who had passed seven long years together in Hogwarts under the watchful eye of Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, savior to uncoordinated choking girls of every designated house in the school?

Everyone hopes for the standard of the best: a stable job, marriage, children, a peaceful death. What if none of that happened? What if there was some secret which parents never divulged to their children? Maybe it had to be discovered for oneself. Maybe it was considered bad karma to tell any other person, so it had to be a secret if you didn't want any greater power to smite you. If she chose to sleep for the next nine months, three weeks, six days, twenty three hours, and fifty one minutes, only to wake up with the last nine minutes before that ten month landmark hit, would she be any happier than if she were to sleep the next nine minutes, only to sleep for the next nine months, three weeks, six days, twenty three hours, and fifty one minutes? Was that even a choice?

Does anyone really have any control?

Angelina's brow furrowed in concentration as she considered, too oblivious to her surroundings to notice that Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth were staring wide-eyed at the window next to Elizabeth's bed. Slowly, she became aware that there were three bodies suddenly behind her and a cold breeze freezing her as she stood before them in her pajamas. Lily stood the furthest back, pressing against Elizabeth's and Emily's backs as they clutched onto each of Angelina's arms in terror. Elizabeth's blood-curdling scream near Angelina's ear alerted her to her environment rather quickly.

Eyes quickly looking around, she noticed the opened window through which the large barn owl had flown to enter their room, swooping around the girls' belongings, pulling at the clothes splayed across Emily's bed.

"GET THAT _BLEEDING OWL_!" Emily cried.

That set them off. Emily sprinted forward, grabbing the spoon which had been laying on the floor. Elizabeth followed her twin, dropping to her knees to snag the sleigh bells from the now shattered séance circle and then she was up again, shaking the bells threateningly and racing towards the wildly shrieking owl. Doing some shrieking of her own to rival that of the preposterously large owl, Lily dashed towards her bed and wrapped herself in her blankets, sitting upright and covering her face. Angelina tried her best to remain calm and took several long strides towards the window, trying her darnedest to avoid the owl's path as the owl tried its best to avoid Emily's and Elizabeth's paths. Slamming the window shut, Angelina let out a shout of triumph and jumped into the air with her eyes clothes, fist pumping upwards while the rest of the 7th year girls screamed. Opening her eyes, she saw it. Saw him. James Potter.

Walking to stand with the twins, for Lily was still wrapped up in her blankets but had thrust the sheets and blankets away from her face in order to be able to see, Angelina watched as Lily's mouth opened and closed furiously, her face turning a rather unflattering dark maroon. James, already flinching, tightened his grip on his brand new Gleaming Arrow quidditch broom. Angelina could not see part of James' body, nor the back half of the broom. _Invisibility clo-_, she began thinking, but Lily's scream quickly interrupted the thought.

"POTTER!"

James stopped moving. He stopped exhaling and held his breath. His eyes were squeezed shut, his jaw clenched. He prepared himself for the worst.

"DON'T. YOU. DARE. COME. BACK. HERE. EVER. AGAIN. JAMES. MICHAEL. POTTER!"

Angelina, Emily, and Elizabeth backed towards the door, hoping to escape in case Lily suddenly turned into a dragon, started breathing fire, and burnt anything in her path to a crisp.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Emily asked slyly, winking at her sister and at Angelina.

"No…" Elizabeth blinked.

"What are you talking about?" Angelina asked.

"GET. OUT!"

Lily's voice seriously scared her friends. It was quite raspy and high-pitched. They were, however, even more taken aback by her proximity to the terrible Potter. Her hands were squeezing into his upper arms while she leaned in, snarling at him. His eyes were wide open and he seemed to have stopped breathing again, stuck on the inhale instead of the exhale this time. She started pushing him backwards towards the escape path of her three roommates.

Hurriedly, the three girls dashed out of their room and onto the stone steps, pressed against the wall of the stairwell. James came flying out of their dormitory arse-first, and he bumped onto the next stair. It was a devastating bump for everyone but Lily, as she was standing just inside their shared room, panting and trying to not breathe fire on her best friends. Coincidentally, this was not a problem, as they were now flying down the now smooth stairway straight down to the common room with James Potter, screaming bloody wizard murder.

The four of them landed in a heap, sprawled in a pile in the middle of the common room, body parts jutting out at odd angles. Elizabeth looked torn between laughing and crying, while her twin laughed hysterically, calling out to Angelina.

"It means that they're one step closer to dating! Lily knows his middle name!" Emily dissolved into cackles while Angelina heard her name. Looking up from her squashed position underneath the twins, she saw Remus speaking her name. _My name always sounds so nice when it comes from his lips_, she thought for a moment, _so nice…_

"OY!" Sirius was standing over them now. "Did you plan that purple lingerie for Remus because you know it's his favorite color, Angelina Divine? Not quite so innocent of you, is it?"

Three things happened simultaneously.

Emily yelled, "Hooray!" at the thought of Angelina finding out Remus' favorite color.

Remus punched Sirius square in the jaw.

Angelina breathed a quiet "Oh, shit" upon recognition that the entire common room was gathered around them, and she was in her silky, dark purple slip.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Two Encounters and Two Escapes, Both of which Lead to Tears**

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit," Angelina kept repeating, unable to move much more than her mouth while Elizabeth tried to remove herself from their large body-pretzel. "I am going to kill Lily Evans."

Elizabeth shrugged slightly, and extended a hand for Emily to grasp. Emily pushed and shoved Angelina all over the place while she got up. After successful disengaging herself from the pile, Emily merely dusted herself off, leaving Angelina to fend for herself, and beamed at every other person in the room. And every other meant "every other person but Lily Evans who is safe and sound in the dormitory".

The girls had turned in early for their séance; it was part of the rules. Turned in early meant a short while after lunch, early afternoon. Several hours had passed. Glancing at the clock as she oh-so-gracefully climbed off of James Potter ("accidentally" shoving his face into the carpeted common room floor in the process), Angelina saw that it was exactly 7:07 in the evening. Right after "eatin' time" as Emily had so eloquently put it, just a while before. Everyone had just returned from "eatin' time". And _everyone_ was staring at her as she stood before them in her skimpy purple slip.

Elizabeth and Emily joked and laughed, palling around with everyone. Sure, they were wearing tank tops, but they were also wearing pajama bottoms! And sure, Emily had small cartoon penguins on hers, and Elizabeth had cartoon fish and "Catch of the Day" writing on hers, but they were full length bottoms. Angelina was quite nearly baring it all for every student in Gryffindor House except for her best friend Lily, and Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth were the only three people she was comfortable enough around while this scantily clad! The other people were never meant to see her like this!

Not all those first years, covering their eyes. Not all those second years rounding up the first years and turning them the other way while they themselves blushed. Not all the third year boys pointing and laughing while the girls blushed and busied themselves with other nonsense. Not all the fourth year boys who immediately let go of their fourth year girls' hands to cover up their pelvic region in fear of having their own embarrassing incident. Not all those fifth year boys who had dropped their Ordinary Wizarding Levels practice pamphlets in surprise and had yet to pick them back up because they were staring at Angelina, nor those fifth year girls who were picking the pamphlets up off of the floor and whacking their year-mates unabashedly upside the heads. Not all those sixth year girls who blushed for her, worried that all the sixth year boys were now going to start imagining them in different colored lingerie and slips. Not Peter Pettigrew, who kept staring at her, wringing his hands anxiously while darting his eyes away from her, and then back to her legs. Not Sirius Black, the most sought after wizard in Hogwarts, who was now standing as he rubbed his jaw tenderly and who kept stepping on Peter's toe to signal not to look at Angelina, and who then let his eyes soak up the picture of her on his own. Not James Potter, resting on his elbows and looking at her with eyebrows raised, astonished at her gall to wear such a thing. And certainly never Remus Lupin, whose slight blush made his nice golden eyes stand out even more noticeably as he stared at her face, watching her every move.

And Angelina watched him. She just stood there, still as a statue, legs and feet pressed together as tightly as possible as she shuddered slightly, closing her eyes. She quickly wrapped her arms around her torso, hiding her chest to the best of her ability. She felt the eyes follow her movements and she let her eyes fly open again, realizing Remus was watching her in this stupid, ugly, violet slip that barely covered her bottom. And it was then that she calculated her next move.

She needed an escape route, that was for sure. And, in order to ensure that as few people as possible would be watching her run up the stairs, she knew she needed a diversion. She didn't have her wand, neither did the twins. Letting her eyes roam the room frantically, she found the perfect opportunity. The perfect opportunity was lounging on the floor, smirking a mock "Sirius Black smirk" which said 'perfect opportunity' must have learned from his gorgeously arrogant best friend / soul mate. _And, _Angelina decided,_ I am going to go kick that perfect opportunity in the stomach._

Hesitantly, Angelina took a step forward. She cringed when she felt all the eyes dart to her extended leg, and when a fifth year boy named Jonathan wolf-whistled at her, Angelina felt a nerve snap. She marched deliberately forward towards James, pounding her feet on the plush maroon carpet for dramatic effect. She stood just before him, taking pleasure in the way Potter's eyes widened in fear and confusion. Channeling Lily, Angelina felt herself reveling in the pain she was about to cause such a pompous ass and raised her foot, pulling it backwards. All of a sudden, she let it fly forward and she kicked him in the stomach. Once, twice, and three times without thinking, for three was always the best number in Potions, Charms, and Transfiguration (but not Defense Against the Dark Arts, because three would mean you didn't defend yourself on one!) She cackled as he doubled up in pain and shock, glanced around to see Remus looking slightly worried and slightly confused, Sirius aghast at her actions and staring, Peter looking back and forth between James and Angelina, balling his hands into fists in preparation to fight her off of his friend. Elizabeth and Emily blinked a few times while they, too, stared at their best friend, jaws dropped in twin expressions of surprised horror. And then every pair of eyes in the room turned to James, wanting to know whether or not he was alive or if the crazy lady from 7th year had murdered him from blunt forces to the abdomen.

So Angelina ran. She ran straight up the steps to the girls' dormitories, her bare feet slapping the cold stones. She ran straight into Lily as she barreled into their room, knocking her over and landing on the floor.

By the time they had untangled, tears streamed down Angelina's face with an unrelenting fury and Lily wrapped her arms around her tightly, hugging her close.

"Everyone was staring, Lily," Angelina gasped out before dissolving into wails, just as Elizabeth and Emily made it into the room and locked the door. The twins shuffled over guiltily and wrapped their arms around Angelina and Lily. Soon, Lily was crying over the trauma incurred from James creeping in their room while invisible. Angelina and Lily crying together made Emily and Elizabeth hug tighter. The tight-hugging ball of young women full of pulsing estrogen encouraged Emily and Elizabeth to cry as well. And so, the four girls ended their séance as every true séance should be ended: sobbing, wailing, and hugging the most important people in one's life in one enormously extreme explosion of estrogen.

Angelina woke up the following morning quite disoriented. Rolling off of her bed and landing flat on the floor with a plunk!, she discovered that she hadn't actually snuggled up under the blankets, but had just lain on top of the maroon and cream sheets and hugged a pillow. Reaching up and slapping her hand around on her bedside table, she placed her glasses onto the bridge of her nose and blinked repeatedly.

"Gross," she muttered, noticing the mascara streaks and large drool spot upon closer inspection of her pillow. Too lazy to stand, Angelina crawled on all fours over to the bathroom, raising her torso and kneeling to open the door, shuffle forward, turn around, and lock it. Sighing heavily, she rolled to her toes and stood, peeking into the mirror.

"Grosser," she groaned, looking steadily at her reflection. Her hair looked like effing seaweed because of how disgustingly greasy it was, and her eyes, blackened from mascara, gave the appearance that she had been beaten, which could not have been further from the truth. After all, _she_ had been the one to lose control and kick James Potter in the abdomen three times.

James Michael Potter. Captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team. Prankster extraordinaire. Transfiguration genius. Bloody gorgeous. Most popular boy in school.

_And I kicked him in the stomach? _Angelina thought, horrified as she stared at her pale reflection, brushing her teeth furiously with that deliciously refreshing magical mint paste. _I'm an idiot._

"I'm a complete _idiot_," she repeated, slipping out of her …slip and stepping into the shower. The water hit her body in a burst of cold and she resisted the urge to scream.

Every single person in the Gryffindor House had seen her in that purple slip. Each and every student. Gossip spread like wildfire throughout the halls of Hogwarts and she certainly would not be spared. Lucius Malfoy would know by breakfast.

Angelina shuddered and stepped out of the shower, wrapping herself in a towel and then wrapping another around her hair. Sighing again, she swiped her hand across the steamed mirror before opening the door and walking over to her bed. Emily winked at her as she dashed into the bathroom in her favorite lime green towel. Lily, having had enough sense to shower after their séance, was brushing her long, red locks, making sure to brush through each third of hair one hundred times each. Elizabeth lay completely still, wrapped in her sheets, her face the only visible part of her body.

Several minutes later, after casting a charm to dry her hair, Angelina moved towards the door of the dorm, ready to go down for breakfast before Potions.

Sitting in Potions class next to Severus Snape would not normally be a pleasant situation for anyone, let alone Angelina Divine. And, indeed, today was exceptionally brutal for the girl, for the fabulous breakfast events of the morning remained on her mind.

When had she made it to the Great Hall, for a (hopefully rejuvenating) breakfast, Angelina quickly sat at the end of the table, all by her lonesome. The plan had been to avoid all human contact as long as possible. She would eat quickly and quietly, immediately heading off to the dungeons to wait patiently for Potions class to begin.

Quite unfortunately, Angelina's plan did not go off without a hitch. Yes, there was a rather large hitch. A rather off-puttingly swank hitch with very regal features. Oh, Lucius Malfoy was quite the looker. But only if one enjoyed looking at insensitive, arrogant pretty boys. Coincidentally, those same Lucius Lovers were also Sirius Stalkers. At a later date, Angelina probably would find this coincidence much more than a coincidence and throw this in Sirius' beautiful face. However, Sirius' extravagant face, the complete epitome of god-given masculine beauty, was not in her line of vision. On the contrary, it was Lucius Malfoy's visage, smiling at her sweetly.

"Hello, Angelina," Lucius spoke, standing across the long Gryffindor table. He had a melodious tenor, very smooth.

"Mmm," she responded, barely looking up at his face.

"My, my, back to regular school robes this fine morning?" He waited for her eyes to rise to meet his own icy blues before continuing. "My sources tell me that you were quite a … _violet_ last evening."

'_Sweet smile' my ass,_ Angelina thought, immediately blushing crimson.

"I even wondered if perhaps I might get to see you as a dazzling _amethyst_. I'm considering a career as a jewel collector."

Angelina had a coughing fit while biting into her banana nut muffin. Lucius Malfoy smirked. Score: Angelina - 0, Malfoy - 2.

"I haven't a clue about what flowery and precious stone nonsense you might be talking, Mister Malfoy," Angelina replied with all the formality of a butler in the Malfoy Manor. _Or a house elf, _she supposed, _but with a little less stuttering and usage of the third person and name repetition. _Score: Angelina - 1, Malfoy - 2.

Lucius winced. His face darkened, his smirk turned a little more wicked. "Come now, you don't really mean 'precious stone', do you? You would really only sell for a little bit, being a _semi_-precious stone." Ouch. Score: Angelina - 1, Malfoy 3.

Lucius Malfoy was good. Angelina would've found herself impressed supposing she were another Slytherin, but as it were, she was absolutely horrified with the way in which he managed to slip in an insult about her half-blood status in the Wizarding World. She glanced around; there were still very few breakfasters in the Great Hall, many of them Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws, clinical early risers in order to see the sunshine and to cram in some studying, respectively. Angelina fumbled to come up with an insult towards him and found she struggling epically. Instead, she settled upon glaring at him ferociously as she leaned away from her table. His face returned to its unruffled appearance but retained the underlying darkness.

"Why don't you go change into something a little more flattering, and then join me in a broom closet?"

"Excuse me, Malfoy?" She was on her feet. This could escalate into a fistfight rapidly.

"Well, I don't know why you are acting so…affronted, Angelina. Certainly someone who displays herself as a harlot to her own pitiful house should share these qualities with the rest of the better, more qualified houses in Hogwarts. I'm surprised you're not jumping at every single man in this castle to take you to a broom clos-"

"I apologize and regret to inform you," she interrupted furiously, but somehow managing to keep her voice calm, "that just because of word about a ridiculous occurrence has spread through the passing of a night, I have not magically turned into a rampant tramp, especially one that could even begin to live up to the disgusting reputation which your dear Narcissa Black retains."

Malfoy's face turned ugly and his fists clenched. Angelina smiled to herself slightly. That would count for double. Score: Angelina - 3, Malfoy - 4. He grabbed the front of her robes and pulled her towards him. She grabbed onto his tie in retaliation, their faces inches apart. When he spoke, he spoke loudly and unabashedly.

"Narcissa is faithful to _me_," he snarled, "and she is well above your own class. You've been whoring yourself to the Marauders for years. I suppose you fit right in with those shameless blood traitors. They'll associate with anyone, even dirty-bloods and mud-bloods." Angelina - 3, Malfoy - 5.

Slytherins from across the room had heard him and they snickered, laughing at his joke and his insult. Angelina faltered. Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws were staring at the entrance. Turning her head, she felt her heart drop. They were in the doorway. James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus, staring at her as she stood with Malfoy, much closer than she had even imagined. Their mouths were hanging open, horrified at the scene before them. Angelina looked away from them and towards Malfoy, a nasty smile on his face, full of satisfaction because of her emotional duress, and at that point, she realized that noses had just an inch between them. With horror to match that of the Marauders, she realized that when they had come in, she and Malfoy had lips barely apart, hands on each others robes, and her face kept pulsing red hot heat. For anyone in the world who had just walked in, it looked as though they were about to share a steamy and romantic kiss over her half-eaten breakfast.

The Marauders marched over, shouting and gesturing, questioning and thinking. Feeling tears build up in her eyes, Angelina dropped his tie, ripped Malfoy's hand off her robes, turned about-face, and ran out of the hall. She shoved her way through Remus and James, not even glancing at them as she felt the tears spill over. She ran to the bathroom on the first floor of the dungeons, locking herself in a stall and bawling her eyes out, something she hadn't done since 5th year and the Harry the Tyrannosaurus Rex incident.

She had arrived in Potions just as the bells rang, the house elfs always ringing on the exact designated time. No one turned around when she entered. Sliding into the seat next to Snape, she tried not to sniffle and tried to regain some composure. Snape spent the entire lesson, which was meant to be for copying notes on the dangers of brewing Super Speed Solution, sketching. And he wasn't sketching just anything, Angelina noticed out of the corner of her red-rimmed, watery eyes. He was sketching flowers. _Violets. _She glanced at his face, and he had some grotesque-looking smirk going on. _Who in hell thought it would be a good idea to buy violet purple ink for notes this school year? _Angelina thought as her lip wobbled. _Merlin must hate me. _


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Dirty-mouthed Twelve Year Olds and a Trip to the Hospital Wing**

Having copied down very detailed notes on the Super Speed Solution until the bells rang again, Angelina dashed out of the Potions classroom and down to the Herbology greenhouses. She needed time to be alone, to be around the plants. She could just go down to the Greenhouse 8 right away, grab a potted flax plant, and begin collecting the seeds. Sure, she hadn't actually learned how to acquire the flaxseeds, but how hard could it be?

In the midst of approaching Greenhouse 8, Angelina spotted Professor Sprout, bustling about and shooing some second years away from a Mimbulus Mimbletonia which was located on a shelf in Greenhouse 2.

"Goodmorning, Professor!" Angelina called, feeling herself perk up a bit already, and drew closer to Greenhouse 2.

"Hello, Miss Divine. No, _no, Watkins_! You do _not_ touch that unless you want stinksap all over yourself! Get off to Transfiguration! Professor McGonagall does not appreciate tardiness!" Professor Sprout sighed.

The 2nd year's face turned from eagerness to touch the Mimbulus Mimbletonia to horror at the thought of a displeased McGonagall. He and his fellow classmate looked at each other, panicked. _Must be Ravenclaws,_ Angelina thought, chuckling to herself. _Not even in a week, and they know not to get on the wrong side of McGonagall... _She smiled nicely at them as they scampered by her and the first, Watkins stopped in his tracks about a meter past her, causing his friend to slam into him. They both went down in a pile of limbs, school robes, and bags, parchment flying everywhere.

"Oh, _really_, Watkins..." Professor Sprout walked over and waved her wand about, collecting their items. Angelina had already dropped to a crouch, helping to gather the school things that had scattered in the grass. She grabbed another quill and grinned, handing the items back to Watkins' friend.

Watkins stared at her. It was disconcerting. Using his elbow, Watkins nudged his pal in the side and nodded towards Angelina. His friend blinked and stared, too. Angelina felt herself starting to blush, thinking that they were just boggled by the fact that a Seventh Year had just helped them pick up their belongings after an embarrassing tumble. That had to be it, right?

"You're the tart-y Gryffindor girl!" Friend-of-Watkins exclaimed, excitement in his eyes.

Wrong.

Angelina's face paled and, almost immediately, she felt tears stinging her eyes for the second time that morning. She brought her hands up to cover her face, already hearing Professor Sprout's voice reprimanding the twelve-year old.

"_Thirty_ points from Ravenclaw for that language, Hawkins! You are very lucky you haven't been here more than a week, or I would triple the deduction! Now _go!"_

She didn't see the two boys run off to the castle, but by the time she decided to open her eyes, Angelina, did see some of the older students coming down from the castle leisurely to make it to N.E.W.T. level Herbology. Professor Sprout was trying her best to comfort Angelina and rested a hand on her shoulder, patting gently.

"Come," Professor Sprout commanded gently, directing Angelina inside of Greenhouse 2 and towards the sink in the back. "Wash up for class."

Angelina nodded gratefully and sniffed back tears as she walked towards the sink and started the water, _accio_'ing a clean cloth to dry her face. Professor Sprout went on.

"I don't know what that was about, dear," she began, "but if you need to talk, my office is always open and you know where to find me. If you would just like some extra time in the greenhouses, I could also give you a few extra assignments." Professor Sprout grinned, and Angelina attempted a small smile. She always liked the professor, so maybe if she did need anything she could come take a trip through the greenhouses, indeed.

"Thank you, Professor," Angelina replied.

"Of course, of course. I wasn't kidding about that extra Herbology practice, either, Miss Divine!" She laughed and guided her student out of the room and over to Greenhouse 8, in which the entire N.E.W.T level Herbology class for Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs had assembled. Dropping Angelina off at a table with a slight squeeze of the shoulder, the professor continued on to the front of the greenhouse classroom.

"Today, we are moving on from sorting dragon dung. Oh, yes, Mister Black, you've had quite enough of that, haven't you?" Angelina glanced up with a tentative smile to see how Sirius had reacted, and discovered not only that he was shrugging with a handsomely affixed guilty smile towards Professor Sprout, but that James and Remus flanked his either side and had their eyes glued to hers, matching looks of betrayal and disgust. Quickly looking down at her hands, Angelina's smile disappeared and she felt a little stab in her heart. They weren't the ones who should be feeling bothered. They weren't the ones to appear half-naked in the common room - unwillingly, in any case, as the Marauders were infamous for having no modesty about their rather aesthetically appealing bodies and enjoyed showing up to the common room with half open button-downs or no shirt at all and just pajama bottoms. They weren't the ones who Lucius Malfoy had accosted at breakfast. And they weren't the ones who were called "tart-y Gryffindors by two Mimbulus Mimbletonia freak Ravenclaw Second Years. _I was. So why in Merlin's beard are they looking at me like that?_ Angelina asked herself.

"Today," Professor Sprout continued, snapping Angelina out of her confusion, "We will be learning to collect flaxseeds. These seeds have oils which can be used very effectively in dyes, hair products, soap, and most importantly, medicines. Once we have collected enough seeds, we will use a spell to extract the oil and put it into containers. I will have two students take the vials of flaxseed oil up to Madam Pomfrey. Let's begin!"

With a clap of her hands and a swish of her wand, Madam Pomfrey collected the dark sheets which had been covering the work tables in the greenhouse. Angelina kept her eyes down as she reached forward for a flax plant. She was separated from her best friends, the Marauders glared at her every time her eyes glanced towards them. The Hufflepuff girl next to her, Adrianne, used her wand to prod Angelina gently and remind her that she needed tweezers and gloves. Feeling a rush of gratitude, Angelina smiled at Adrianne, the only student she'd encountered who had been even remotely nice to her, excepting her roommates.

Having always had a green thumb and a love for Herbology, Angelina had finished capturing all her flaxseed and securing the oil in a rather large vial on the table at which she worked and that she shared with Adrianne, Maria, Flynn, Francis, and Frank. Adrianne and Maria were best friends who dated the O'Lafferty twins, Flynn and Oisin. Frank Longbottom was the only other Gryffindor, and he hadn't said a word to Angelina. They had finished collecting the oil from the twelve plants in their table. The other five students chatted amicably amongst themselves as they began sifting through bags. The class was about to end. Suddenly, feeling very uncomfortable, as a fifth wheel and a non-entity at her table, Angelina stepped away and found Professor Sprout.

"I would be happy to take the oil to the Hospital Wing, Professor," Angelina said quietly, looking at her toes.

"Grand, Miss Divine! Let me just dismiss everyone and find you a partner."

Angelina walked silently back to her table to see that her tablemates had left, leaving the vial of flaxoil in the center of the wooden piece. Angelina rummaged around in her bag, bent double, hoping to find a stopper to use. Once she succeeded, Angelina quickly stoppered both her table's vial and the vial on the table to her left. No one was in the greenhouse except for Professor Sprout, who made a small motion with her hands to leave. Angelina smiled and walked out of Greenhouse 8 at a fast pace, knowing she had to get up to the Hospital Wing and then maybe run down to the Great Hall for some lunch. Turning to wave to Professor Sprout, Angelina backed right into a hard body and let out a yelp as she dropped to the ground. Groaning, having been reminded of the embarrassing moment outside another of the greenhouses just a short while before, Angelina pushed herself off the ground and dusted her robes off, feeling her face get a little red.

"Sorry, I wasn't looking and -"

"Save it, Divine," came James Potter's voice, cutting her mid-apology.

_Uh-oh. _

"Sorry, I-"

"Save it, I said," he said again. He held two vials of the oil in his hands and began walking up towards Hogwarts' castle.

Grunting and letting out a sigh of frustration and embarrassment, Angelina hoisted herself up and grabbed her vials off the grass, chasing after him. She tried to keep up with his long strides but the effort was winding her.

"Can't-" she began.

"No," he interrupted.

"You-" she continued.

"No," he interrupted.

"Go-" she continued.

"No," he interrupted.

"Any-" she continued.

"No," he interrupted.

"Slower?" she finished asking.

"I believe you know the answer to that, Divine," he said rather nastily. Potter - 1, Angelina - 0.

"Well, I apologize for not being in wonderful physical condition that _you_ are, Potter," she said back, just as snidely. Potter - 1, Angelina 1.

He stopped in his tracks, nearly resulting in another collision. He turned to face Angelina and put his two vials on the grass carefully. As he began untucking his shirt, Angelina stared blankly. What in the Ministry of Magic was he doing...

"The wonderful physical condition that _I_ am in?" She nodded in response, very vaguely, still horrified as his hands started tugging up his sweater. "I'm sorry, but you seem to have forgotten that I was brutally attacked by some stupid girl last night!"

Angelina could hear the heat and the anger in his voice. She didn't want to look into his eyes. She didn't really have to, because at that time James Potter decided to pull off his sweater and undershirt and to stand before Angelina in his uniform slacks. She gasped quietly when she saw the large purple, red, and blue bruise across his abdomen. It wasn't exactly the shape of a foot, but she knew that was how it had happened.

"Oh, James, I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed earnestly, dropping to her knees and reaching out to touch it gently. He flinched and sucked in air sharply as her pointer finger made contact with his tender skin.

"'Sorry' doesn't fix the bruise on my stomach nor on my ego, Divine," he pressed on, but with slightly less venom.

"Really, I.. Look, when we're with Madam Pomfrey, we can get you some Brilliant Bruise Balm for it, right? I mean, I'll ask her to use it for myself because I tripped on the way to potions this morning and have a giant bruise on my knee or something, and then you can just wait outside and I'll bring it out and we can put it on, and that way you don't need to be embarrassed and I really am sorry, I never meant to hurt you, I just..." Angelina trailed off, realizing she was rambling.

"Just what?" Potter asked, still not very pleased with her apologies.

"I just needed a way out," she frowned and backed away from him, staring at his chest and sighing.

"No need to stare, Divine. I'm well aware that I have a fit body even with that nasty thing you added on," He had a bit of a grin now.

Angelina flushed. She hadn't meant to be staring, but when one has kicked a boy in the stomach and later examines the consequences, one does tend to get a little side-tracked by rather nicely formed abdominals and pectorals. _That's normal, right? _Angelina queried herself.

"Did I go for the wrong Gryffindor Seventh Year? I mean, I've loved Lily forever, but if you like what you see..." he trailed off suggestively, and smirked at Angelina.

_Okay, apparently not normal. _She decided.

"Gross," she replied, finding it hard to think of any sort of way to dissuade him.

"You think I'm unattractive? Is that why you decided to kick me in the stomach?" Most of the malice had been lost from his voice, and he picked up his vials, ready to continue on to the Hospital Wing.

Angelina grimaced and followed along until she could break stride behind him. She glanced at his face; he still didn't look too happy.

"No, I just ... It was awful, James, you have to understand," she pleaded. "Everyone was staring. I needed a distraction!"

"Do you commonly find that physical violence is a wonderful way to distract others?" He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Well, no, but, it worked!" She tried a half-smile back at him and he relented a little more.

"You didn't just hurt me, though. Sirius had a broken jaw, you know."

"What? Seriously?" James grinned. "Oh, it was never a funny joke! How did his jaw get broken?" Angelina really could not remember doing anything to him, after all, it was James she had kicked.

"You don't remember?"

"James, I was a little horrified that everyone was seeing me in that nightgown!"

"I wouldn't call that a _nightgown_, Angie," James winked at her.

"I just threw up a little in my mouth," Angelina stated calmly, having stopped spluttering at his comment.

"Harsh," he said, caught between a frown at the rejection of his flirting and a grin at her retort. "That was the cause of it, though. He made a comment about your conniving ways."

"And...?" Angelina encouraged, asking him to continue. She really hadn't noticed his jaw. Pondering how he had smiled at Professor Sprout just minutes before, she ignored the comment about her being conniving, as it was certainly untrue. "Wait, but, he was smiling. Is that possible with a broken jaw?"

They had just reached the Hospital Wing and entered. Angelina shivered a little bit, shocked by the clean white walls, beds, and curtains. For some reason, it always surprised her how absolutely sterilized everything seemed to be at all times. Disconcerting, really. She walked back towards Madam Pomfrey's small office with James Potter, still confused but momentarily distracted by the cleanliness of the room.

"Madam Pomfrey?" James called.

"...Mister Potter! When I let you leave this room not more than eighteen hours ago, you promised me you would not make a quick return!" Madam Pomfrey did not look happy. Angelina could see that Madam Pomfrey's brown curls were starting to grey, or at least the curls peeking out from underneath her usual bonnet were changing pigment. The wrinkles were really starting as well, and Angelina was sure the woman must have had frown lines from the age of fourteen.

James grinned at the matron in response. "I brought up some flaxseed oil from Herbology for Professor Sprout. Thought you'd be a bit happier to see me, Poppy..."

She yanked the vials from his hands as well as from Angelina's own hands, startling her. Angelina hadn't thought that the witch had noticed her, but apparently the woman didn't have such smalltalk to make with her as she had with James.

"How is Black?" Madam Pomfrey called, her back turned to them as she bustled around, rearranging other flasks and vials and containers on the shelves in the back of the her office.

"Just dandy," James replied with a grin. "Quite happy with the bruise, he says it will get him more women. They love bad-boys, apparently." He shot a wink at Angelina.

_So James and Sirius were already here to get his jaw sorted out. Makes sense, I suppose._ Angelina thought to herself, scoffing at Potter's wink.

"Speaking of bruises, Potter, how is your abdomen?" Madam Pomfrey had turned around and held a little container in her palm, ready to slather it on at any moment, Angelina figured. And then, Angelina figured that the bruise was already partially healed if Madam Pomfrey had tended to it within eighteen hours. She was starting to feel really, really awful about kicking James Potter in the stomach.

"I'm fine, I have some more balm in my dormitory." He smiled kindly at her, and Angelina felt even worse. "We should get going though. Don't want to miss lunch!"

"Bye, Madam Pomfrey," Angelina spoke, as the woman nodded to them and shooed them off and out of her Hospital Wing.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: An End to a Conversation, a Lost Battle, a Book-Cat, and an Invitation to Chat**

Angelina cast a sidelong glance at James as they walked towards the Great Hall together.

"I am really sorry, James, I didn't realize I actually hurt you. And I wasn't even aware that Sirius was injured!" She was still boggled.

"I'll be fine. You're just lucky I'm already captain of Gryffindor's quidditch team, or I might sue you for damages to my perfect chaser bod right before try-outs in a week."

"How didn't I know Sirius got hurt, though?" Angelina pondered aloud.

"Well, let me recap for you, yeah?" Angelina thought briefly that he was starting to pick up mannerisms from the twins, which was a strange thing indeed, and she should remember not to hang out with the bloody Marauders as much as she had been. Civility was one thing, but seeing James shirtless and having him winking at her all the time like they were the best of pals...

"So, I'm laying on the floor, minding my own business. You sort of stood there for a moment while everyone checked you out. What? I'm not kidding, Angie, you have a pretty nice body, everyone was looking. Stop your spluttering, you should know that most of the glances were appreciative. Or, well, at least the glances that mattered."

She stopped and stared at him, hands on her hips as she tapped her right foot.

"Bloody hell, don't look at me like that! You remind me of Lily, and I find it kind of sexy. Ahh, don't look at me like that either, I'm sorry! Anyway, Brunette Marquis.. Uh, I mean, Emily, she let out this whoop. Moony, uh, Remus absolutely socked Padfoo- Sirius after Sirius made a comment about your seducing Remus. You were just standing there, in your own world, apparently. Then, you chose to come over and _kick me in the stomach_! The Marquis twins followed you up to your dormitory, and Peter, Remus, and I took Sirius down to Poppy back there. I'll have you know that I could barely walk, and you kick pretty damn hard."

Angelina had stopped listening. Remus had punched a best friend because Sirius said that _she_ was _seducing_ him? Preposterous. He was the one trying to seduce her, with his taking her bag to class, and his asking to walk her to dinner, and his hugging her rather well before she went up to bed, and his defending her virtue! She hadn't had a clue that his favorite color was purple and that showing up in the common room in a risqué piece of purple silk lingerie would have such terrible results. Granted, she also hadn't had a clue that she would be ending up on the common room in a risqué piece of purple silk lingerie in front of the entire Gryffindor House. Really, Sirius had no reason to say that she was trying to _seduce_ Remus. Remus obviously thought Sirius was being just as preposterous if he punched him. Really, she should explain to James that it wasn't her fault that Sirius was injured.

"Potter!" She yelped when her eyes came back into focus and she realized that he had been standing very close to her, their bodies almost touching. "Uh, hello," she continued, blinking furiously and having forgotten everything that she had just worked out in her head.

"Hello." He blinked back at her a few times, looking quite serious. "I'm very hungry Angelina, and I would prefer it if you kept walking. The sooner we get to the Great Hall, the sooner I can eat. I bet that everyone has eaten everything by now!" He turned and strode forward.

Angelina didn't follow James. She stood in the corridor, blinking furiously, trying to gain control of her thoughts as they began racing. Though the walk with James had calmed her down a bit and assuaged her, she certainly was not prepared to face "everyone" in the Great Hall. Word had spread like wildfire, much faster and much wider than Angelina herself had anticipated. If two dinky little second year Ravenclaw boys knew about the previous evening's incident, every single student in the castle certainly had to be aware of it. There was no possibility that she was going to show her face in the Great Hall until at least a week from now. Until a new scandal sent the gossip tearing through this old castle.

Quickly, Angelina ducked behind a suit of armor and held her breath for forty-seven seconds, enough time for James to continue on down the hall far enough that she could escape. When the time had passed, she rushed through the corridor, around a corner, down a staircase, reaching a seldom used hall. Or, at least, she had never taken classes in the particular hall where she now found herself. Breathing a little heavily from the panicked escape, Angelina walked up to the door to a classroom. She pressed her ear against the door. Nothing. She turned the handle. Nothing. She pushed the door open just a crack and peered inside. Nothing. Letting out a little squeal, she opened the door completely and hopped inside, closing the door and turning the lock behind her.

Angelina really had seen nothing. The room was empty. Just some stone walls and an old wooden door. No desks. No tables. No chairs. The flagstone floor was dusty. Angelina crossed the room to the three windows which allowed some natural sunlight into the room from the south expanse of the Hogwarts ground. Sighing, Angelina frowned and her eyes looked out at the lake. Nothing to do until Transfiguration.

"No one to see until Transfiguration," she remarked aloud, finding a little solace in her inevitable boredom.

She dropped her bag onto the ground. Waving her wand around a bit, she managed to clear the dust from all but a dark corner of the room. And so, Angelina Divine sat herself down on the floor and blinked, anticipating her strong defeat of boredom, loneliness, and hunger for the remaining hour until she would need to be in Professor McGonagall's classroom.

The defeat came, and it came powerfully. Unfortunately, it was the boredom, loneliness, and hunger that defeated Angelina. Within eight minutes. And after twenty-one minutes, Angelina was splayed out on her back, spinning her wand around in circles to create streams of colored smoke, a charm which Professor Flitwick seemed to have found extremely necessary to add to their charm repertoire in the midst of their fourth year. She watched the pink cross the green and then turn purple, twisting around to burst through the yellow. Finding her thoughts straying resulted in wispy colorful smoke apparitions of her favorite foods. A rather large sundae of burgundy smoke ice cream, white smoke cherries, and yellow smoke chocolate sauce dripping through the other colors. A brown smoke muffin with blue smoke banana nut pieces. Blue smoke linguini with an appetizing red smoke sauce. Angelina's stomach rumbled loudly. Frowning, Angelina allowed the smoke to dissipate and checked her silver watch. Fifteen minutes more until the start of class.

Angelina sat up and stretched, reaching for her toes. She could last. She could make it until dinner.

A loud growling sound cut across the empty room.

She didn't have a chance of surviving N.E.W.T. Transfiguration with McGonagall on an empty stomach.

"Well, Merlin's pants! Maybe I can make it!"

Angelina grabbed her school bag with her books and parchment, tore out of the room, up the staircase she had previously descended, and through corridor after corridor towards the entrance of the Great Hall. She didn't notice the students who stared after her as she ran past. Just as she got to the large dining hall, she glanced at her watch. Ten minutes until McGonagall would walk right into the eighth floor classroom next to the Eastern tower. It would take seven full minutes to jog up to that room. And, as those poor Ravenclaws had obviously learned, McGonagall was a force with which to be reckoned, and a Hogwarts student simply did _not_ arrive to her class late. Or, one did not arrive to her class late and not expect and receive punishment. The Marauders showed up late for an assortment of reasons, though Remus Lupin seemed to try his darnedest to appear on time, usually dragging in Peter Pettigrew. James Potter and Sirius Black had gotten rather used to immediate detentions handed out upon their late arrivals, to be quite honest.

A slightly guttural noise of frustration escaped from Angelina's throat and she started jogging to Transfiguration. A grumble from her abdomen replied to her voluntary vocal stress relief. Once more, in such a hurry, Angelina was oblivious to the eyes watching her.

As she rounded the corner, gasping for breath, Angelina spotted the Transfiguration professor walking quite composedly towards the room, a rather distinct contrast to her own desperate jogging. Angelina burst into the all-but-full classroom. Looking about, she spotted a seat next to Lily and slid into it. Center of the first row probably would not have been her first choice given the current situation and attention she had been receiving for it as well as her desires to crawl under a rock and die, but Angelina knew Lily would be grateful as well, for Angelina would be between Lily and James. It wouldn't even be half bad today, Angelina considered, because she and James had sort of come to an agreement or an understanding or ... something.

Lily smiled at her bracingly as James turned a cold shoulder towards her, turning in his seat to talk to Sirius, who sat in the third row. Blinking Angelina turned towards Lily as she let out a long breath.

"Where have you been?" Lily hissed to her friend, just as McGonagall entered the classroom.

"Come on, Min, can't you do the cat again this year? It was your last first entrance!" Sirius had a jaunty grin on his face as he called out to the Professor.

"Detention, Black!" Professor McGonagall replied, glowering at him as she waved her wand and turned his copy of Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Transfiguration by Nefertiti Ness into a rather pretty cat.

Emily giggled in the seat directly behind Sirius as she looked over his shoulder to wave at the cat. Professor McGonagall let out a quiet sigh and half-rolled her eyes before beginning again.

"Good afternoon, class," she spoke. "I would like to give you a brief overview of our academic plans for this year. Our main goals are centered around developing your Transfiguration skills with human transfiguration. Ideally, you will perfect these spells and be able to pass your N.E.W.T.s. For those of you who may struggle with the difficult tasks I set before you, I would like to announce now that I will happily meet with you outside of our scheduled class times to further assist you."

Sirius snickered at the idea of anyone needing help, while Elizabeth's countenance brightened dramatically.

"Please, take out your copy of Ness' wonderful text and open to page three. We will start with reading, _silently._" The stress on her word was not missed. "Once everyone has finished, I believe we could have a nice discussion about the reading. Begin."

The silent reading was broken within five minutes, when McGonagall accosted Sirius again.

"Yes, Mister Black? Is there a problem?"

"Uh, yeah, Professor," he replied, looking a bit sheepish. It was kind of endearing because of the irregularity of such an emotion across his handsome features.

"And what would that be?" She asked coldly.

"Well, you turned my book into a cat."

Half the class stifled laughed, but Remus, Peter, and James absolutely roared with laughter. Angelina grinned at Lily, who returned the smile a little hesitantly.

"Well, Mister Black, you must have passed your Transfiguration O.W.L.s to have gotten through last year's classes with me and to be allowed to continue this year. Fix it yourself."

Her command was heeded, but unsuccessfully. Sirius spent the entirety of the class period waving his wand around and jabbing at his book-cat, but the book-cat would not return to being simply a book. Remus kept snickering at his fellow marauder each time he found it necessary to take a break from reading, and he seemed to be taking an abnormally large number of breaks for such an avid reader as himself.

"You may all thank your classmate Sirius Black for the assignment that will be due next class," Professor McGonagall said in a pleasant voice as the students began packing their things away. "His antics distracted most of you throughout the hour and left us without a discussion. Ten inches on any one of Ness' Top Five Incidents Which Led to the More Commonly AcceptedUse of Human Transfiguration." She left the room.

A collective groan sounded from the students as soon as their professor had left. Lily glowered as James climbed over some desks and began petting Sirius' cat-book. Emily laughed lightly as she and Elizabeth reached and aisle and walked towards Lily and Angelina. The Marauders were crowding around Sirius.

"Come on, James, fix it for me!" Sirius pleaded.

"Yeah, yeah," James, ever the top Outstanding Transfiguration student, waved his wand and the book-cat quickly reformed into a book.

"You're the _best_ best mate ever, Prongs," Sirius gushed, grabbing up his book and shoving it in his bag. The four boys walked towards the door and brushed past the girls a bit rudely, surprising Angelina. Usually, the boys were quite nice, especially James towards Lily and Remus towards... Angelina stopped that train of thought, shaking her head as they passed, none of them looking. _Must be some super weird Marauder stuff that I don't want to know about anyway, _Angelina decided.

"Come on, let's just get this done now!" Lily exclaimed, grabbing Elizabeth's hand and pulling her through the doorway.

"To the library!" Emily echoed, always having been fond of Transfiguration.

"But we've only just finished class," her twin whined.

"Exactly! It's still fresh!" Lily was positively beaming as she dragged Elizabeth towards the library, Emily hot on their heels. Angelina followed them, smiling to herself and forgetting about the past twenty-four hours.

The library essay-writing extravaganza took a longer period of time than Angelina had anticipated. She chose to explore the incident in which an eleventh century wizard altered his appearance drastically to escape persecution for having stolen a loaf of bread for his starving daughter. Sure, the man had stolen the loaf of bread, but it gave Angelina enough fuel to go into some wizarding ethics and have the ten inches go by like it had been nothing. The problem arose when Lily, ever the over-achieving, high-reaching top girl of Hogwarts' class of 1978, chose to challenge herself. And by challenging herself, Lily made the decision to write about Harris the Horticulturist, the eighteenth century wizard who used his prowess in transfiguration to attempt to turn himself into Venomous Tentacula. Though his initial hopes were to better understand the process in which the plants could use the sun to create energy while also eating live prey for energy, the actual process. The problem was that Lily had found this information in a reference book in the Herbology section of the Hogwarts library, and the star student wondered whether or not she would be allowed to break the assignments requirement for a more interesting and more creative paper on the whole. After an hour and a half of weighing the options and her friends' opinions, Lily decided to write her ten inches on Murmuring Murphy who transfigured his teeth into marshmallows and back again.

Angelina had arrived to the Great Hall well before her friends and grabbed a seat on the bench at the long Gryffindor table. She quickly began piling heaps of food onto her plate, inhaling deeply. By Agrippa! She was absolutely starving.

"Food, fooooooooooooooood," Angelina was moaning as her friends made it into the Great Hall.

Dinner was delicious. Angelina was quite glad; it was as though Dumbledore and the house elves were rewarding her for having waited for such a glorious repast. Elizabeth, Emily, and Lily with her. She had forgotten about the previous night's disaster and the strange conversations she'd had throughout the day. The Marauders hadn't even sat near them, which was becoming a rarity. Angelina was assuming it was simply a sort of seventh year camaraderie that had begun to develop, but the Marauders had been fairly chatty and friend-like lately. Sitting with the girls in classes, sitting with the girls at dinner, making some attempts to study together.

It was quite strange. And so was the fact that spicy-man Brad was walking over to the Gryffindor table, his eyes fixed on Angelina. She flushed red immediately and began wiping her mouth with a napkin, ignoring the curious looks from Lily and Elizabeth, whose backs were turned to the dashing Ravenclaw.

_Ravenclaw? Shit, _Angelina thought. _If those puny second years knew about last night, I'm willing to bet for Lily's prized golden potions cauldron that __**he**__ knows about last night. _

"Hey," he spoke calmly.

"Hi," Angelina replied, resisting the desperate urge to raise her eyebrows at Lily and Elizabeth twisting around in a panic, trying to see him.

"Can we chat?" Brad asked, giving her a rather winning smile.

"Sure."

"Privately?"

Angelina's cheeks became exponentially more rose-colored at the same time that Lily and Elizabeth turned to face her with wide eyes, mouthing 'Oh my _god_!' and 'Go!' respectively, Emily swatted Angelina in the side with her left hand, and the four Marauders shot Angelina and Bradley death glares.

Angelina hopped up from her seat and walked along the length of the table, not knowing what to expect when they made it out of the hall and someplace private.

(HEMHEM: -- That was funny, right? Anyway... Shwoopshwoop. I forgot to do a little note on the last chapter, so my apologies. For some reason, I've just churned out both of these chapters in the past few days. I'm even motivated/inspired enough to continue on for beginning the 16th, too! C'est fou! In addition, I just added on the titles for the chapters. They've always been titled, actually, I think that's half the fun of writing them. But I just added them to the actual chapter list, if I've figured it out properly, and in bold to the top of each chapter. If you've already read them, it might be a fun trip to go back and read the chapter titles. They generally summarize what happens in a vague, witty sort of way. (Or at least, I think so..) Anyway, Thanks so much for continuing to read, and a special super huge thank you to everyone who has been reviewing, and to everyone who has put my story on alerts! :)! It's much appreciated and very flattering. Chapters are hopefully going to start picking up a little bit. ... Maybe. We'll see. ;] Thanks so much! -Colleen)


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: The Details of a Private Conversation, a Hurtful Conversation, and a Conversation with Oneself**

The two seventh years walked out of the Great Hall together, continuing on, both of them smiling. Bradley veered off and went to the left, turning down a corridor that was seemingly empty. Angelina followed, extremely curious as to what was going through her new friend's head. Her mind wandered. _His handsome, handsome head with the adorable dimples and strong, Roman nose... _Her thoughts were interrupted when she realized that the two of them were now standing just inside an empty classroom, as Bradley had just closed the door. She must have just followed him in while she thought about how positively good-looking he was.

She looked up at him to further investigate his features, but found herself distracted by his movements. Bradley kept swallowing and twisting his hands round and round, looking extremely nervous. His actions perplexed Angelina. She made a strange face at him.

"Is everything okay, Bradley?" She queried, genuinely confused.

"Yeah, yeah," he brushed her off. "Actually, call me Brad. Bradley seems so formal."

She smiled at him and nodded, quickly thinking of a nickname or two that she often tolerated from her friends.

"Most of my friends make up nicknames for me, too." His eyes darted to her face when she spoke this time, and she felt the need to continue to ramble on. "Lena, Angie, Ange. Sirius Black is fond of 'Angie-baby' but I can not say that I'd be pleased if you started referring to me as such. Well, hell, I'm not really pleased that he calls me it, but he simply insists. I'd be happy for you to call me Lena, because usually Angelina is too long for my closest friends. Lily, Em, and Liz only use it when I'm in trouble with them or they're being ridiculously proper as a joke." Angelina giggled a bit and briefly discovered that she wasn't so sure whether or not she wanted to admit to Bradley that someone _did _call her by her full first name in every situation, and specify that she had never been in trouble or any ridiculously proper circumstances with him.

"Hmm," Bradley grinned. "I kind of like the ring of Angelina, so maybe I could still-!"

"No!" she cut him off. He looked at her strangely, a bit taken aback. "No, it's really just too formal for me."

"How about Angel, then? Nice and original, and not as ...cumbersome as you seem to find your full name."

Angelina stopped and pondered things for a moment. He had described it as "cumbersome". That was not how she viewed it, not at all. She just viewed it as a special sort of thing. It was like her name held a certain little tenderness when that "someone", that person of whom she had momentarily thought seconds before, when _he_ said it. Because Remus Lupin unfailingly called her 'Angelina' each time they spoke and he had never once wanted a nickname for her. And her blush arose when she realized that Remus was the only one she wanted calling her by her full, given name.

"I'll take that as a yes," Bradley stated, taking her blush as a signal of contentment.

"Sure," she smiled, "Angel it is."

Whatever nonsense thoughts of Remus were running through her head right now would have to wait. Specifically the thoughts of him calling to her as they ran towards each other with open arms, in painfully slow motion, through the field of dazzling sunflowers that had magically appeared on the Hogwarts grounds near the lake, on a bright, sunny day: so sunny, in fact, that Remus Lupin was suddenly shirtless and -

"Wonderful!" Bradley interrupted her thoughts.

She smiled at him tentatively, and then found herself thinking of Remus approaching her slowly but surely, before coming close to her body and whispering "Angelina" quietly in her left ear, making her cheeks go red once more.

_Shit. _She thought to herself, breaking up her daydream. _Shit, what am I __**thinking?**_

"So, _Brad_," Angelina began, emphasizing his new nickname and trying to change the pattern of thought going on in her head, "Is there a reason you needed to speak with me privately? I hope you didn't find the matter of nicknames too personal for dinner conversation in the Great Hall."

She winked at him, finally regaining her composure. Her teasing was not taken lightly, and she noticed him blushing again. It was just one big blush-fest in that deserted corridor's empty classroom.

"Oh!" he exclaimed. "It actually wasn't. I was wondering if maybe sometime you'd like to get together and do some more artwork?" Bradley's voice went a bit high at the end of his question, startling her.

Angelina's mind stopped working once more as she tried to comprehend his invitation. Was he asking her for a date?

"Err, ye-!"

"We could invite Lily, too!" He was quick to interrupt, noticing her hesitation. "I mean, if you didn't want it to be the two of us, I'm sure I could get Carson to come..."

Angelina blinked, and then blushed. Merlin's beard, was that all she could do anymore?! She tried to lighten the mood.

"I bet he'd love to see Lily!"

Angelina grinned at Bradley, and he returned it, seemingly a little more calm.

"So, you're in if Lily's in?" he asked, still grinning widely.

_Circe's bewitching figure! _Angelina swore. _Those dimples are going to kill me..._

His grin really brought them out. The dimples really added a whole lot to his sex appeal.

"Brad, are you really just trying to ask me to get together with you outside of class?" Angelina teased.

"Would you like if I were trying to ask you to get together with me outside of class, Angel?" The discomfort was suddenly lost, and he smirked back at her.

"I do believe that that is for me to know and you to find out."

"So...let me find out. Tell me." His command wasn't harsh, simply flirtatious.

"Patience is a virtue." She smirked at him, trying not to blush even more.

"Who said I was virtuous?"

Angelina choked and started laughing, her melodious tones soon joined by Bradley's own deeper laughter.

Several hours after Bradley's seemingly hilarious retort, Angelina strolled into the common room and collapsed onto the maroon armchair furthest from the fire, her sweater folded across her arms and her white button-down a looking more like a rainbow from a brief paint-war. She had stayed down in that empty room with Bradley for much longer than she had anticipated. They had had their little "get together outside of class" then and there. He had kept up the charm, and she had become more comfortable and within twenty minutes, Bradley had summoned some easels, large sheets of parchment, and set up workspaces for the both of them. The easels faced opposite ways, so that they had been able to peek over their own to look at the other person. Angelina had used the charmwork from class to make several creations, all of them later stuffed away in her school bag.

She took them out now and looked over them. The first creation was a hippopotamus. Angelina had been feeling very dissatisfied that Bradley had beaten her in Charms class, so she sought a rematch. She had won this time and gloated to a smirking Bradley. The second painting was a field of sunflowers and a great big sun. Flushing red at the cheeks, Angelina realized suddenly what had inspired the scene. Hurriedly, she placed the piece at the back of the pile and looked at the next one. It was a rather rough estimation of her little circle of friends, a bit stick-figure-y, but the people were distinguishable, she thought: Lily with her bright red locks, towering above Elizabeth and Emily, both of whom were wearing neon green heels in the painting. Angelina chuckled to herself, and slid it to the back of the pile of art in her hands, blushing darkly when she saw the last one. A portrait of Bradley Kent Ortone. Oh yes, she now knew his middle name. She smiled a little and let her memory take her back to the room.

"What are you doing, Brad?" she had asked him, suspiciously. It had been about the fifth time that he told her to stop moving.

"I'm creating a masterpiece!" he had exclaimed, grinning at her again, showing off those gorgeous dimples.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Your friends inspired me in class, actually."

"Really?" Angelina had asked again, at the risk of sounding even more like an idiot.

"Yes, really," he had teased. "I'm going to do a portrait of one very pretty lady."

Blushing as he winked at her, Angelina had bitten her lip and tried not to move around so much anymore. After about ten minutes, he was finished, but wouldn't let her see the completed drawing. Instead, she had harassed him about moving too much as she began to paint him. The whole process took a bit longer, for he was definitely more talented than she was, but it was enjoyable all the same.

Once both of them had finished painting, they had shared the pictures. Angelina thought that he had done a wonderful job, and when she had glanced at Bradley out of the corner of her eye, he was grinning like a maniac at her own masterpiece.

"Shall I sign yours?" He had asked, sounding a bit cocky. "For when I become rich and famous, I mean."

"Only if I sign yours first!" And so she had signed his, Angel, while he signed his with his full name: Bradley Kent Ortone.

She had been packing her paintings away in her bag and been about to leave after a short while of chatting with Bradley when it happened. They both had gone to go through the doorway at the same time and bumped into each other. Smiling, she waved him on playfully, but he had taken her wrist and pulled her in close. Angelina had blushed and then felt his cool lips on her warm cheek. She had watched him leave, a jaunty little bounce to his step.

And now, here she was, sitting in the Gryffindor common room. She placed a hand to the cheek that Bradley had kissed and couldn't stop herself from grinning.

"Hello, Divine," a voice drawled. And boy, she knew that voice. "Swooning over a poorly charmed painting of that Ravenclaw bloke? "

Angelina jumped up, aghast. Her face paled and she pulled the parchments close against her chest. From one of her girl friends, the question would have been teasing. From Sirius, it sounded dangerous.

"I thought you had been blessed with better taste, to be quite honest..." His voice trailed off, as if he were merely musing, but when Angelina looked into his eyes, she saw traces of anger.

"Look," she tried, hoping she wouldn't panic, "I'm really tired, and I'm just going to go up to the dorm and sleep."

He stepped closer, narrowing his eyes into a glare.

"Lots of boys to think about before bed, huh, Divine?"

Angelina's jaw dropped.

"Don't think that I don't see what you're doing, Divine. You are being rather slutty, even by my standards." His voice dripped with distaste.

Angelina was absolutely flabbergasted. What in the world was going on? Sirius Black thought she was slutty? Is that why the Marauders hadn't been as friendly? Is that why they kept sending her nasty glares and sneers?

"I don't know what you're talking about, Black."

"Oh, really? I guess your trashy appearance is just a joke, then?"

Angelina didn't want to deal with this. She needed to get up to her room and think things through.

"Let me by," she demanded.

"No," he replied, cool as a wizarding world cucumber.

"I mean it, let me through, Black!" Angelina's voice rose another decibel as she glared.

"What?" He asked. "Are you not used to boys saying 'no' to you now? Do they all just give in to dirt like you?"

It stung. His words really, really stung. She felt her eyes watering and she looked down at her feet, willing herself not to cry in front of him.

"Sirius, what's going on?" A voice asked. Potter.

"Yeah, Padfoot! What's happening?" Peter Pettigrew.

This couldn't be happening. The Marauders were going to gang up on her right here, right now. All she wanted to do was get to her room and her bed. She could think things through there, try and sort things out there. She could cry there.

"Well, my boys, it appears that Angelina Divine has changed quite a lot this summer, wouldn't you agree?" Sirius' voice was dark and quiet.

"I might say that," James agreed conspiratorially.

"And I bet Remus would agr-!" Peter had started to add.

"You bet Remus would what, Peter?" It was Remus' voice, calling from the portrait hole through which he had just been entering.

Angelina looked over at him for a second, tears about to begin leaking from her eyes. He looked completely bewildered, the hand he had been using to massage the back of his neck gently was frozen in place. He must have just gotten back from patrolling the halls. Prefect duty. And here his best friends stood, cornering a teary eyed Angelina, who had just met his eyes. His sad, hurt eyes that had just glanced down for a few seconds to stare at the painting in her hands. The picture of Bradley.

Angelina blinked as the tears started to fall down her red cheeks and bit down hard on her lip. In one movement, she grabbed her bag and dashed past Sirius Black, straight up the staircase to her bed. She was sobbing as she ran up to the highest dormitory and made it inside. Within seconds of slamming the door closed, Angelina felt Emily come over and wrap her arms around her in a tight embrace, stroking her hair and leaving her questions unasked.

Her few brief minutes of sobbing subsiding, Angelina hugged Emily tightly and let go. Frowning, Emily watched Angelina walk over and curl up on her bed, drawing the blinds closed, before glowering and sneaking down to the common room, deciding to wait for Lily and Elizabeth to debrief them and let them know that Angelina had been sobbing. Plus, this would allow Angelina to have some precious alone time to calm down and sort out her thoughts.

Wrapping her arms around her knees, Angelina sat in the middle of her bed. She had heard Emily walk out. And now...she could think.

Life was quickly becoming a mess. Everyone had changed too much from the past years. Was it really everyone, though? Or was it just Angelina, as Sirius had suggested?

The Marauders had changed. The situation even approached friendship. They made jokes with Angelina and her best friends, partnered up in classes, studied together. The boys had been sitting with them every meal, and had come to the hospital wing to check up on her after the corn fiasco at the welcome feast. Obviously, it was just a deeper sense of camaraderie between the members of the same year. Next year, everyone would split off and go separate ways, and being close this year, having fun and really caring about everyone, that would make some good, solid friendships to maintain and build once they were out of Hogwarts. But why had they all been so cold to her this evening? She had thought things with James Potter were patched, and in turn, the rest of the Marauders would follow blindly. Sirius had never been so malicious to her. The past was all teasing; tonight had been cruel. His eyes were angry. Was he going to suggest that she was seducing all the Marauders, including him, instead of just Remus? Peter had even joined in, as usual. So why did she care so much now, when she hadn't cared for the past six years?

New friendships, relationships. Angelina's mind was swimming through a deep river with a fast current, and it was struggling to decide who had changed, or maybe it was everyone who changed. Maybe she was only just realizing it now, maybe she had been blind to it for the first six years of her schooling here.

Remus had changed. His smiles to her, his slight touches in Defense class, that night before bed, and when he had passed in the hallway. Those were all new and exciting. But, obviously, something inside her own self had changed and had taken over her mind and was implanting rather romantic daydreams involving herself and the best Marauder. Of course, he simply _was_ the best, she wasn't being biased. It certainly wasn't because he was the handsomest, the one with the most genuine charm (rather than Sirius' "you-know-you-will-do-anything-that-I-say-for-a-chance-in-the-broom-closet-with-me" sort of charm), and the one with the sweet tooth for chocolate, just like her. It was because he was a prefect, and very responsible. She didn't want to go find out what it was like to have him hold her close and kiss her. Of course not. She wasn't going to start wearing all the purple clothing that she owned much more frequently or anything. Right. She wasn't thinking about him kissing her right now, or anything. No, no, no. This was certainly not a crush on purple-loving Remus Lupin.

And Bradley. Newly dubbed 'Brad'. There not a change there, as she had only recently met him. But he had changed her already. He made her feel so greatly confident, and by Agrippa, she had actually been flirting with him rather steadily and as though it were second nature. His dimpled smile made her melt, and he certainly had shown his interest in her, with that little kiss on the cheek! He didn't know all the embarrassing things that had happened to her in the past, he didn't know much about her at all. Brad made her feel like she could turn over a new leaf, and be a completely different person. And she didn't have the urge to stomp right down to Ravenclaw and ask him to kiss the other cheek. That was totally wasn't happening. She wasn't at all inclined to go drop hints and wink in order to suggest he invite her to spend some more time together and paint again. Not in the least. And she definitely was not developing a crush on Bradley Kent Ortone.

Angelina knew all of that to be the truth. And more than anything, she knew for certain that she was not sitting up in her bed after a traumatic twenty-four hours considering whether or not she preferred Remus or Brad. Nope, she was just considering the...finer points of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Like blossoming ...friendships. Just as the Sorting Hat had always wanted. Yeah. That was it.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: The Girls' 7th is (Apparently) Full of Hormonal Girls and Cockroach (Clusters)**

It had been approximately twenty-three days, nineteen hours, and six minutes since the Marauders had stopped being civil, friendly even, and had started being annoying and mean. Well, not quite. Sirius enjoyed flirting very obviously with girls instead of studying, James tormented Lily with renewed vigor by professing his love, Remus stayed well away from everyone but his three best friends in classes, meals, and downtime, and Peter made jokes at the expense of the Slytherins or anyone else who was not a Marauder. In actuality, life had gone back to the way life had been for six years of Angelina's stay at Hogwarts. The Marauders were arrogant, selfish, and did not acknowledge the presence of their Seventh Year female counterparts; Angelina, Lily, Emily, and Elizabeth were composed, helpful to younger students, and tried to ignore the presence of the Marauders.

And really, they were doing just that: _trying. _Kind of funny how a summer vacation and a week of generally good behavior makes a Hogwarts student forget just how fond the dear Marauders were of pranks and fiendish activities. The past few weeks, Angelina and the girls were reminded of just that fact. Pranks had been going on at a regular frequency, and no one was spared. Prime targets were, of course, the Slytherins. The prime targets of the prime targets were, of course, Severus Snape and Lucius Malfoy. Their harassment was starting to frustrate and to bother Angelina, who really was not pleased at all that the cauldron she shared with Severus Snape during potions class sometimes began boiling viciously, thanks to a well placed spell cast that James or Sirius had cast. And when Lucius Malfoy received a rather crude and inappropriately placed _Erecto_ spell from the Marauders during dinner in the Great Hall, he chose to simply glower at Angelina instead of seek some sort of retaliation against the four Gryffindor men who, at the time, were laughing hysterically and high-fiving each other. A few younger students suffered some random hexes and jinxes that the boys threw at each other in their boredom. All in all, this reversion to old standards made Angelina want to punch a wall, Lily want to punch James, Emily want to console any poor, accidental victims, and Elizabeth highly hormonal.

The girls were walking down from Gryffindor Tower to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Lily buried her nose in her textbook while Emily held onto the redhead's wrist and pulled her along. Elizabeth and Angelina conversed light heartedly and touched on a very awkward subject: Elizabeth's strong desires for a man since the Marauders had gone back to teetering on the edge of insufferable.

"Lena, I don't know what it is," Elizabeth began, "but something about the tension in life really makes me want some way to let out that frustration."

"Liz, that is not the problem."

"Well, then what is the problem?"

Angelina stared at her. The woman had to be absolutely barmy.

"The problem is that you want to release your tensions by...by...by broom-closet'ing it up with some random guy!" Angelina's voice skyrocketed into high pitch and loud volume.

"What do you suggest I do then, Miss Know-It-All?" Elizabeth asked, affronted.

"That's not me, that's Lily," Angelina snickered, but Lily hadn't even looked up from her book. Angelina frowned. "I just mean that it boggles me that you're even considering doing this!"

"She already has done it," Emily broke in, grinning as Angelina spun around in shock.

"Seriously?" She asked, astounded.

"Nah, not with Sirius," Emily winked.

"With Dennis Davies," Elizabeth supplied, blushing slightly.

Angelina stopped in her "gotta-make-it-to-D.A.D.A." tracks. Emily dragged Lily past her still form. Elizabeth seemingly sped up her pace and tried to distance herself from Angelina. After a moment to regain her composure, Angelina ran after them and caught up before they made it to Professor Crumplant's classroom.

"Dennis Davies?" She did not miss Elizabeth's small smile. "The Hufflepuff boy with pretty hair and pretty eyes?"

Grinning wickedly, Emily jumped back into the conversation. "He has pretty lips, too, according to Lizzy."

Angelina choked and tried not to laugh as Elizabeth dashed forward the extra twenty feet to the room and rushed inside. Lily finally closed her text and placed it inside her bag, taking deep breaths before her own entrance into the class room. As Angelina approached the door, Emily sent her another grin.

"You'll get over my sister's poor decisions, yeah? Still do okay on your test?"

"Why can't she just bake us some cakes, or color us some beautiful pictures, or scream into a pillow, or something equally as productive?" Angelina suggested.

"You don't think snogging cute boys is productive?" Emily's eyebrow raised and Angelina blushed as the two hurried into the room.

Trying to avoid Emily's laughter, Angelina snagged a desk towards the left of the room. The tables were always gone on test days, replaced with individual desks to discourage cheating off of one another. In the seven minutes that remained until the exam packet would magically appear on the desks, Angelina pondered.

Dennis Davies. He was blond and baby-faced, very cute with a sweet personality; never rash, and always conscious of any repercussions to his actions. Angelina was almost positive that he had dated Hester Sparrow, a sixth year Ravenclaw, for about three years. If he was a god damned Hufflepuff, loyal to the bone, why was he suddenly cozying up to Elizabeth, and why was Elizabeth not at all bothered by it? Elizabeth had repeatedly told her friends that the tension and stress of remorseless Marauders made her on edge sexually. At first, Angelina had thought it was a really ludicrous joke, but she quickly started to understand that it was not at all a laughing matter. Elizabeth Marquis had gone on a decent number of dates quite regularly since fourth year. It was only because she was not currently seeing someone that the Marauders were affecting her so badly. Angelina simply had not put two and two together for years. Why did everyone turn to boys as some twisted means of comfort and satisfaction? Why _couldn't_ everyone just bake cakes, color pictures, and scream into pillows?

"Begin!" came Professor Crumplant's voice from the front of the room.

Angelina looked up, keeping her face neutral, and then looked down around the room. Seeing that the rest of the desks had been filled, she stared down at her test and groaned quietly. Essay writing in response to the moral and ethical dilemmas one faces in using an Unforgivable Curse as a means of self-defense, as well as other defensive options that one could pursue. This was not going to be enjoyable...

About an hour and fifteen minutes later, Angelina had returned to the girls' dormitory. She had finished her exam and had even deemed it not as painful as anticipated. She had studied well for it, and it was more a pain to figure out which information to use than to struggle to think of what she could possibly throw in there. She figured that by the time she left, only half the desks were full. Not a bad performance for her first exam in N.E.W.T. level Defense Against the Dark Arts, at all! Angelina decided to congratulate herself with a nice nap.

She pulled off her clothes and let them fall of the floor in a heap next to her bed. Grabbing a baggy tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, Angelina changed into pajamas and slid under the covers of her four-poster. Sighing, she snuggled into her pillow, not even removing her glasses. Then, she felt it.

A little tickling feeling at her toes. Quite strange. She moved her foot and it stopped for a few minutes. Smiling to herself, she closed her eyes again and tried to sleep. The feeling returned, this time over a wider range of her foot. Frustrated, Angelina wiggled her feet around and scrunched her eyes shut more tightly. Within moments, the "tickling feeling" became a rather disconcerting "crawling feeling", gradually coming up the length of her legs. Angelina threw the blankets off of her body only to find hundreds of cockroaches scuttling across her body.

She blinked once.

Twice.

Then she let out a blood-curdling scream.

Flinging herself out of bed, Angelina raced down the stairs while tears welled up in her eyes. She could see a masculine body walking towards the steps, but couldn't quite recognize a face through her tear-blurred vision. Angelina launched herself from the second to last step and threw her arms and legs around the boy.

"Help! Help, help, help, help," she repeated in a rather wobbly, yet still frantic voice.

The person instinctively wrapped one arm underneath her bum to hold her up and one arm across her back. Hesitantly, he rubbed her back as a means of calming her down.

"Bugs...all over...my legs," Angelina panted out, before letting out a low whine and shuddering with the thought.

"There aren't any on you now, Angelina" her savior remarked.

Angelina's breath caught. Her body tensed. She recognized his deep voice even before he used her full name.

"Remus," Angelina murmured, feeling her cheeks go hot. She had run downstairs and jumped into the arms of the boy who had been causing her a particularly large amount of emotional stress for the past twenty-five days. His hand was still rubbing her back and her cheeks kept reddening. She did not want to let go and have to face him.

"Angelina," Remus stated.

"There were bugs all over my legs, Remus," Angelina told him again, trying to avoid changing their position, fearing that any movement might make it awkward and then separation would be necessary. At the moment, she didn't want to let go of him. Remus' body was warm and sturdy, and she was feeling terrified and wobbly from the bugs.

"There aren't any bugs on your legs now, Angelina." He sounded only slightly amused, but more strained than anything.

"But I swear there were cockroaches all over my legs, Remus." Angelina's face pulsed with heat. She pressed her cheek against his cool neck and hoped he didn't notice the extra temperature.

"I believe you, Angelina," Remus told her, his voice dropping in volume. Angelina almost melted.

Angelina tried to tell herself that she wasn't manipulating him. She tried to tell herself that she did not keep saying his name at the ends of her sentences simply to inspire him to keep saying her name in response. She tried to tell herself that there were not any butterflies racing through her insides every time he said it, and especially when he said it so quietly as that last time. She tried not to consider using his name in conversation as often as possible from now on, after having just discovered the very real, very pleasant feelings it gave her to hear him say her name.

"Thank you, I feel a bit calmer now, Remus."

However, "trying" is not always successful, and Angelina quickly realized she was indeed being a manipulative old bat. Remus' hands rubbed her back absentmindedly, and she figured that now would be as good a time as ever to ask him what in the bloody hell was going on.

"Why have you and your friends gone back to being the way you all were the past six years?" She asked him softly, not dislodging herself from his arms.

Remus stayed silent. This was going to be an awkward conversation while he held her, but she obviously did not plan on leaving.

"I mean, I thought that for the first few days, maybe everyone had changed. Maybe we would all get along, your friends and my friends, and it'd be the best year of Hogwarts. A good last year and send off, you know? And since that night Black tore me apart, I've been thinking about everything." Angelina paused, waiting for Remus to say something. He didn't. She continued on. "It's funny that I miss you four sitting with us at meals and studying with us and acting like old comrades."

That was putting the situation nicely and coherently. Angelina was proud of herself. For the past three weeks, she had been obsessive in thinking about her relationship with Remus, Brad, her best friends, and the Marauders. Things were getting far too complicated for her liking, trying to decide if she wanted something more with Remus, or if Brad would make any moves. Elizabeth had been going on and on about her Marauder-induced sexual frustration, Emily kept talking about the innocent younger students, and Lily would only speak about school work. Angelina didn't know how to hold a group conversation anymore because she could only handle talking to one of the girls at a time. And of course, the Marauders were the Marauders. Remus had been avoiding everyone like the plague, Peter laughed and had the most fun pranking people, James pined for Lily and gave every other girl the cold shoulder, and Sirius, who had been the cruelest to her, would only give Angelina dirty looks.

"Why does Sirius suddenly hate me?" Angelina asked Remus aloud, frowning into his shoulder.

"You'll have to talk to him about it," he replied.

"Why can't you tell me?" Angelina dare not say she was whining, but whatever she was doing was coming pretty damn close. It was just so frustrating.

"It's not something for me to tell, Angelina, if he is the one who is upset with you." Remus' tones were even and measured, very controlled.

"Are you upset with me, though, Remus?"

He didn't respond immediately, and Angelina felt the hand on her back stop rubbing. Her mind began racing, wondering what she could have done for him to respond in the affirmative. He had seen the painting of Bradley, but she could explain that to him if he cited it as a reason. Plus, he hadn't seen the picture of the sunny field that reminded her of her short daydream of him. She was not positive she would want to explain that to him, though. Besides, he had been the one avoiding her, right?

"No, Angelina," he calmly replied, apparently having given it some deliberation.

"You haven't been spending time with me for weeks, Remus," she pointed out.

"Angelina, I want to, but things are a bit complicated."

"I'm not complicated, Remus."

"Not just you, Angelina, I mean there are multiple things happening and it's getting confusing."

Angelina understood. His friends were upset with her and they obviously did not want Remus spending time with her. And if Remus wasn't going to talk to her about things happening with his best mates, then she wouldn't harass him about it. Wait for Sirius or James or Peter to come to her, that's what she would do. And in the mean time, Angelina would spend time away from Yvette-Lily, hormonal Elizabeth, and maternal Emily.

Squeezing her eyes shut tightly, Angelina pressed her nose against his neck and inhaled. He smelled woodsy, like autumn. Or, of course, it could be that it was the end of September and that was the general scent of the world. His hand had begun rubbing her back again and the butterflies were flapping around her stomach wildly. If this was a side-effect of close contact with Remus Lupin, she could get used to it.

"Remus, would you help me go over some Defense material later?" Angelina was grasping at straws to be sure she would see him again and soon. It startled her a little, this desire to be around him, and that it was magnified by about tenfold when she was alone with him.

If Remus found it funny or a little queer that Angelina wanted to study her Defense Against the Dark Arts notes the very same evening after having taken an exam, he said nothing.

"Go to an empty classroom at 8."

The sound of someone outside the portrait hole made the two seventh years jump, or rather, tighten their grasp on the other person for just a moment. Angelina loosened her hold and dropped her feet down to the floor. Remus pushed her gently away from his body, holding her at arm length. The two met glances in just moments, for the first time in a long time. Angelina hoped that he did not notice how red her cheeks were, despite her own noticing a slight tinge to his cheeks.

"But-!"

"I will find you, don't worry," he smiled at her sweetly, and her heart pumped erratically.

A wild thought dashed through her head that she wished her pajama tee-shirt were purple instead of green. She blushed darker, turned away from Remus, and jogged up the stairs faster, hearing Sirius' voice greet Remus.

Making it into her shared room, Angelina remembered the bugs. She tiptoed over to her bed and stared down at the bugs. None of them were moving. Frowning, she grabbed her wand from her bedside table and poked at one. No movement.

"Angelina, are you okay?" Elizabeth had burst into the room, causing Angelina to yelp in surprise. Angelina didn't even ruminate that someone using her full name really didn't have the same effect as when Remus used it.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"We just came back up from the exam, Sirius was in the midst of telling Remus that he had pranked one of us, and I couldn't think of anything that had already happened, so I pushed him over and out of my way to get up here to you."

"Come over here, please," she commanded Elizabeth. Angelina frowned. "Do these look funny to you, Liz? I thought cockroaches were the only bugs that would survive the apocalypse or something."

She didn't receive an answer. Elizabeth grabbed a cockroach off the sheets and popped it into her mouth. Angelina's jaw dropped and she gaped at Elizabeth, staring at her in horror.

Emily ran into the room, eyes wide.

"Is everyone okay? I just heard Black talking to Remus. All I caught was 'girls', 'prank', and 'cockroach'. So I pushed them out of the way of the steps and I ran up here and-!"

She was interrupted by her twin's hysterical laughter. Emily walked over to Elizabeth and Angelina, staring down in shock at the cockroaches all over the bed.

Elizabeth hadn't stopped laughing, but she kept trying to gasp out words, hoping to reassure her friends.

"He!" A gasp for breath and more laughter.

"What?" Emily asked.

"Must've!" A gasp for breath and more laughter.

"What?" Angelina asked.

"Charmed!" A gasp for breath and more laughter.

"What?" Lily asked, having just arrived in the midst of the confusion and walked over to the three dormmates.

"Cockroach!" A gasp for breath and more laughter.

"No, really, Liz?" Angelina asked, quite sick of Elizabeth's nonsense.

"What?" Emily and Lily asked together.

"Clusters!" A gasp for breath and then hysterical laughter which resulted in Elizabeth falling to the ground.

Angelina, Emily, and Lily stared at the cockroaches for a few seconds before reacting. Emily started laughing and plopped onto the floor next to her sister. Lily looked at Angelina and tried to fight the grin tugging at her lips. Angelina glared viciously at them as the truth finally sunk in.

Sirius Black had charmed cockroach clusters to crawl all over her in her sleep and terrify her witless.

Angelina screamed bloody murder.

(HALLO THERE. I just wrote this out tonight, and it's longer than average, so that's pretty cool with you readers, I bet! ;] I hope you all love the chapter, as Remus has gotten back into things! Please review and give me your thoughts! I'd really, really appreciate it. It really inspires me and motivates me to write more. Thank you to everyone who has placed me on their Favorite Authors list or their Favorites Stories list! It's rather flattering and it makes my heart go boomboomboom. Same to those who have my story on updates! It's a wonderful feeling! Right, so, hope you've enjoyed the fast updates and everything, please be sure to review! 3)


	18. Chapter 18

Angelina glanced at her heirloom pocket-watch. It was 8:03 in the evening. Remus Lupin was late. Remus Lupin was three _entire_ minutes late.

What in Merlin's beard was she doing, sitting on a professor's desk at the front of a rarely used classroom on the fourth floor? Was she crazy? How in Circe's name would Remus find her here?

Angelina jumped off of the desk and rushed towards the door, intending to peek out the doorway and glance down the corridor for any sign of the young man... only just as she opened the door and stuck out her head, she strangely found that a sheet of crimson covered her entire view. Stranger still, this crimson in her field of vision seemed to be giving off a wonderfully woodsy scent and seemed to be made of distinctively soft fabric, if her sense of smell and sense of touch weren't too far off. The crimson emitted a soft chuckle. Angelina came to a sudden and embarrassing realization: the crimson fabric must be attached to a human being. Then, Angelina came to a sudden and more embarrassing realization: that human being had to be a specific human being, one she had been thinking about nonstop and had been expecting for three whole minutes. And lastly, Angelina came to the sudden and most embarrassing realization of all: she had her face pressed into the chest of Remus Lupin and he was laughing at her.

"Merlin hates me," she mumbled, pulling away from him as she blushed.

"Pardon me?" Remus asked with a small smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Nothing!"

Silence.

Awkward silence.

Angelina knew she was blushing, and then Remus made it about as embarrassing as Snape's greasy black hair.

"So, where are your Defense notes, then?"

Her jaw dropped as she stared up at him, walking backwards in horror. The color drained from her face.

"I... I..." Angelina watched Remus' eyebrow rise expectantly. "I... must have forgotten them in the dormitory! I was in a rush..."

"No, you weren't. You've been down here waiting and pacing for twenty five minutes."

"Twenty eight," she corrected automatically.

Remus grinned. Angelina cringed.

"That was a joke," she quickly tried to recover, hoping to save herself from some embarrassment.

"No, it wasn't," he countered, stepping in closer to her and sitting on the desk at the front of the room.

When Angelina looked at his face, she saw Remus smiling. His apparent comfort instilled an uncommon boldness in her. She stepped forward.

"How would you know how long I may or may not have been in here?"

Her query was met with a grin. "Marauder secret."

Angelina glared at him and dropped into a seat at a student table. Great, just great. She embarrasses herself to no end in front of the guy, and he just grins at her. He calls her out on the ridiculous excuse she thought up to convince him to meet with her, and then shoots down her new excuses. He knows the truth about her having waited for him for a lengthy amount of time because of her anxiety and excitement, but refuses to tell her how. Well, shit.

"Circe must hate me, too..."

"Are you taking to yourself?" Remus quipped.

She hesitated, fighting off a cringe and a blush. "...No."

"You're lying to me."

Angelina found that she felt halfway between wanting to melt into a small puddle on the ground and wanting to slap that handsome grin right off of his face. As the battle raged on, Remus' grin grew wider. Did confidence just sort of explode inside of a body when in the presence of certain people, much how Angelina felt when spending time with Bradley? Or had Remus always been this alike to his friends, but lack of close proximity to the young man made the rest of Hogwarts believe that he was the shy, quiet one?

"So," Remus began, hopping down from the table and approaching Angelina. "What exactly is the reason for this meeting, Miss Divine?"

What in the hell was he saying? "Miss Divine"? That simply wasn't as good as when he said "Angelina".

"I just figured that we hadn't seen each other in a long time." For some abnormal reason, Angelina felt that her explanation must be falling short, because even if his distance made her _feel_ as though they had not been spending any time together for months on end, only twenty three days had _actually_ passed.

"We see each other every day in one class or another," he replied.

"I mean 'seen'," Angelina missed the darkening of Remus' cheeks at her emphasis, "as in actually had a conversation of some sort."

Remus nodded and summoned a chair so that he could sit at the table while facing her.

"Well then, let's have a conversation, Angelina."

Those dinky little caterpillars burst out of their cocoons and began fluttering and flapping around like giant facking Monarch butterflies inside of Angelina. Blushing, she attempted to maintain her cool – or at least attempted to make it seem like she ever _had_ a "cool" with which to begin.

"A conversation about what, Remus?"

"Anything, I do suppose, Angelina."

Angelina noticed a smile grace the handsome features of Remus Lupin. Oh, ho! This game again? Trying her best to ignore those god-forsaken (but rather pleasant) butterflies, Angelina decided to voice her true feelings on their relationship.

"Remus, I know that we've lived in the same house for the past six years and shared a decent number of classes, but I don't know _you._ You know?" She frowned and looked at him.

"That was rather vague and intimidating to be quite honest with you, Angelina."

She rolled her eyes at his calling her "intimidating" and tried again.

"What I mean is… I want to actually get to know you and know things about you. Facts, stories, memories. I already have an idea of who you are with the Marauders, but not who you are as an individual."

"That was less vague and more intimidating."

She glowered at him.

"Well, Remus?"

"Yes, Angelina?"

"What do you say?"

"I say you have yourself a deal."

She smiled. He smiled. All was well with the world.

Two hours later, Angelina snorted into her tea. Remus had just told a joke about Merlin and Milfred the Muggle-born. She met his grin and glanced down at the parchment sitting on her leg. The two had decided to keep a record of their conversations and the little idiosyncrasies they both harbored.

So far, her list had just two points: favorite color and favorite animal. She bit her lip when she reread his favorite color, remembering all the problems that her purple pajamas had caused. When Remus admitted his favorite animal was a wolf with a sad smile, Angelina found herself a little surprised: she hadn't ever really considered him much of a dog person, more of a feline lover. Unfortunately, Remus was beyond surprised and into hysterics when Angelina confessed that her favorite animal was a hippopotamus. He didn't even have the decency to stop laughing when Angelina told him irately that they were very misunderstood, territorial creatures. He had been much more accepting when she told him that her favorite color had to be red, even though she loved all the colors.

Letting just a tiny sigh escape as she gulped the last of her tea down, Angelina hopped off of her desk. Remus stood in order to meet her at the door. The two Gryffindors looked at one another curiously when they reached the path back into the real world.

"Well, so that's that then," Angelina mumbled, looking down at her toes.

"I'd like to do this again," Remus gently supplied.

Brown eyes darted up to meet hazel. Angelina smiled and nodded, a blush gracing her cheeks à nouveau.

"I would like that too, Remus."

"But," he began, "I think we should maybe… well, keep it secret?" He cringed even as he said it, wishing it didn't sound as though he were ashamed of her.

"Oh," Angelina blinked. "Okay."

Keep her a secret? What in Merlin's sassy beard was this?

_Oh, yeah, let's be super great and pal around for a few hours every so often and use each other's full names all the time and hide it from everyone we know._ _Perfectly logical. _She thought. _Not._

Remus let a relieved smile cross his features before he opened the door for her. "I'll leave a few minutes after you. That way no one will be suspicious of us being together. I'll say I had prefect duty."

Nodding, Angelina bit her lip and walked away from him, pondering what in the world was so wrong with being friends.

The next morning, Angelina strolled down to breakfast in the Great Hall, her head in the figurative clouds as she continued to ponder. She slid into a spot on the nearly empty bench and began grabbing croissants and eggs and sausages without noticing Severus Snape stalking over to the table. A cough towards her left alerted her to his presence.

"What is it, Snape?"

"No need to sound so disgusted, Gryffindor. Consider it an honor to be in my – "

"Wrong," she cut him off, narrowing her eyes. "No honor in the least to be near you. Go away."

He glared, dropped a folded up parchment on her table, and left the hall.

Angelina stared at the note. What was the world coming to? Severus Snape giving her a note? Could it be a confession of love for Lily that she was in turn meant to pass on? A request for assistance from her, given that his conversational attempt from a month ago had resulted in Angelina's astonished laughter and his extreme embarrassment. A confession of love for _her_ perhaps? The world had been mad enough for all of September…an equally mad October would be no more unbelievable, she supposed.

Frowning as she took a bite of eggs, she remembered Sirius' accusations of smuttiness. The most defined characters of the school had been in close contact with her lately. The Marauders, Brad, Severus, Lucius... She shuddered. Without another thought, she raised her wand to the note and set it alight, watching the embers crawl up the parchment to her fingers.

Shortly thereafter, her friends claimed their seats around her. They were alight with giggles and smiles, looking around the hall.

"Maybe Dennis will ask me?" Elizabeth ventured. "What do you think?"

"Well," Emily began, "you're still going round to all the broom cupboards, yeah? Then I don't see why he wouldn't ask you!"

"Ask you to what?" Angelina queried, eyebrows furrowing.

Lily, Elizabeth, and Emily blinked at her.

"You didn't check the bulletin boards?"

Angelina shook her head.

"Well, if you _had_," continued Lily, "you would have seen that the first Hogsmeade date has been posted! This coming Saturday!"

Angelina nodded slowly. Dates. They wanted to have dates to Hogsmeade. That's what this whole excitement was about.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I think I'll be going to stock up on some chocolate and perhaps some new quills…" They stared at her again. "What? That's normal and routine!"

"_Exactly_," Emily emphasized the word. "Because you didn't see the notice about Hogsmeade, you also didn't see the notice about the Halloween Masquerade!" Her words were breathy and swooning, her eyes glazing over. No doubt, Emily was picturing herself in a giant ballgown, waltzing through the Great Hall, all eyes turned to her as she spun.

"A masquerade? Really?"

Elizabeth nodded excitedly. "Yes! It invites all fourth through seventh years to attend. Fancy dress and masks required! Oh, I'm positively shaking I'm so excited! Isn't it mysterious and romantic and…magical?" Another breathy voice and a giggle.

"Very magical," Lily agreed wryly. "Anyway, Lena, we've got to be on the prowl for dates! Not just for Hogsmeade, but for the Masquerade! I hope someone asks me. It would be such a beautiful evening…"

Angelina's frown deepened as Lily trailed off into daydreams. Was Angelina the only girl in Hogwarts not nearly wetting herself over the idea of a Halloween Masquerade? She glanced around the Great Hall. Girls in small groups giggling, blushing, and smiling. Boys looking interestedly at a few of the girls who played with their hair and smirking at one another. Yep. It appeared so.

"Well," Angelina spoke, "I'm going to go to Hogsmeade and buy my chocolate and quills. There's no need for me to get all worked up over a stupid Masquerade." Her friends let out quiet gasps. "Fine. Over a mysterious, romantic, _magical _Halloween Masquerade." And with that, she got up and began walking to Potions.

Angelina had spent most of Potions contentedly ignoring Snape by thinking about the new problems that a Hogsmeade visit and a Halloween Masquerade presented to her life. Hogsmeade was less of a disturbance. Visits to Hogsmeade were regular and enjoyable. Angelina adored the shops, especially Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop, Tomes and Scrolls, and, of course, The Three Broomsticks. Hogsmeade visits were adventures for friends as much as they were for couples, and though she didn't want to go by herself, Angelina would be comfortable enough to manage. A Halloween Masquerade, on the other hand, reeked worryingly of the idea of couples and dates. And while it wouldn't be unprecedented to go with a group of friends, she absolutely could not go all by her lonesome. In fact, she _didn't_ want to go by her lonesome at all, and she _did_ have an idea of who she would like to invite her.

And the main problem with having an idea of who she'd like to invite her to Hogsmeade and the Halloween Masquerade was that there were, in all actuality, _two_ young gentlemen in her thoughts. Remus Lupin, and Brad Ortone.

Angelina walked out of the castle towards the greenhouses, her head spinning with the possibilities and likelihoods and images of twirling around a room in a dress.

Though she focused as much of her attention as possible on her coursework, assignments, and whether or not Emily was going to start a day are for the first year students, Angelina found herself brought into the subject of Hogsmeade and the Halloween Masquerade.

A squealing Lily had burst into the Girls' 7th on Friday evening immediately following her Head rounds. Carson had, it turned out, deliberately snuck out of his common room so he could be found by Lily and then proceed to ask her to Hogsmeade. Ever the responsible Head Girl, she docked him 5 points for being out of bed before kissing his cheek and promising to meet him at ten the following morning.

When Angelina realized that it would only be her, Elizabeth, and Emily going to Hogsmeade together the following day, she was a bit put out, but not terribly so. Good for Lily, having a date. Carson was totally a catch. She should've seen it coming! Brad implied that Carson was interested… However, when Elizabeth then owned up to a "small confession" which involved her having agreed to go to Hogsmeade with Dennis the day after the notice had been posted, Angelina frowned and looked at Emily.

"Have you got a date too, Em?"

"Oh no, no… You know me! I can't be bothered trying to get a date for Hogsmeade!" She forced a smile. "You're stuck with me tomorrow, young lady."

Angelina returned her smile. She wouldn't be alone tomorrow! They could make all of the usual stops and no one would look at her curiously, as they might if Angelina were alone.

"We can do whatever you like," Angelina smiled, "as long as I get some time in Scrivenshaft's and Honeydukes."

"And we can do whatever _you_ like," Emily rebutted, "as long as we get to shop for our Masquerade dresses!"

Angelina chewed on the inside of her lip lightly. Was it worth it to argue? Sure, the shops would be crowded as every other girl over 14 searched out the perfect dress. And yes, large groups of people in small spaces did make Angelina a bit panicky and claustrophobic. On the other hand, it would be….fun? She pouted, not trusting her final assumption.

"And masks!"

As she glanced up at Emily, she noticed Lily and Elizabeth sitting at her sides, all three pairs of eyes glimmering with excitement in the lamplight. She didn't want to disappoint her friends. And so, as Angelina tried a smile and nodded her assent, the girls fell into heaps of happy giggles.


End file.
